Honda Motor Co, Japan's No. 3 automaker, said Wednesday that its unit sales jumped by 68.2 percent on the Chinese mainland last month, compared to a year earlier.

The company sold 13,953 vehicles on the mainland in January, up from 8,294 units in the same period of last year, Honda Motor (China) Investment Co Ltd said in a statement.

The sales included 11,884 units from Honda's joint venture in South China's Guangdong Province with Guangzhou Automobile Group, and 2,069 units from another venture in central Hubei Province with Dongfeng Motor Corp, according to Thursday's China Daily.

The growth of Honda's sales more than tripled that of total sales of vehicles produced in the mainland last month.

Sales of domestically-made vehicles stood at 243,100 units in January, up 20.68 percent from a year ago, according to industry statistics.

Last month, Honda announced that it aims to sell 271,000 vehicles in the mainland this year, including 230,000 units from the venture with Guangzhou Automobile and 41,000 units from the venture with Dongfeng.

Honda's sales in the mainland surged by 74.8 percent year-on-year to 215,000 units in 2004, making it the third biggest foreign passenger vehicle manufacturer in China after Germany's Volkswagen and General Motors of the United States.

In January, the venture with Guangzhou Automobile sold 5,863 Accord mid-sized sedans, 6,009 Fit compact cars and 12 Odyssey multi-purpose vehicles.