By Li Hongmei

Foreign carmakers are reaping exorbitant profits selling imported luxury cars in China and should face an antitrust investigation, Xinhua News Agency said.

Xinhua said that in the wake of investigations into how foreign companies in other sectors price their goods, the question of imported cars had become a contentious topic.

Analysts, however, said they did not expect foreign carmakers to become the latest target of China's focus on prices.

"Some people in China have plenty of money and are indifferent to high pricing," said Yale Zhang, managing director of Automotive Foresight (Shanghai) Co Ltd, a consultancy and industry research firm.

China has become a key market for the makers of luxury cars, with 2.7 million expected to be sold each year by 2020, overtaking the United States as the world's leader in the segment.

The Xinhua report said some imported cars were twice as expensive in China than in overseas markets.

It cited a man surnamed Qu who had bought an Audi Q7 in Canada for 78,000 Canadian dollars, or about 460,000 yuan (US$75,000), and who was shocked to see the same car on sale in China for 1 million yuan.

It also said similar price differences existed between some unspecified Land Rover models made by Jaguar Land Rover as well as the BMW X5. JLR is owned by India's biggest carmaker by revenue, Tata Motors Ltd.

Selling imported cars in China was 30 percent more profitable than the global average, Xinhua said, citing Rao Da, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association.

He added that foreign carmakers exercised monopolies over the sales and service channels of imported cars.

"Foreign carmakers have chosen to set prices of luxury cars excessively high in China, where the rising ranks of the rich are willing to buy expensive foreign brands to show off their wealth, and where there are no domestic luxury brands to compete with," Rao said.