Volvo Cars will establish a tech hub in the Swedish capital of Stockholm it said on Friday, as it seeks to reach its goal to sell at least half of its cars online.

The Gothenburg-based automaker said over 700 employees skilled in areas such as software engineering, data science and analytics, would be located at the new hub.

"The expansion will support Volvo Cars' strong growth, as well as its mid-decade ambitions to sell at least half of all its cars online and to develop at least half of all software in-house," it said in a statement.

Volvo, majority owned by China's Geely Holding, also aims for 50% of its sales to be pure electric cars by the middle of this decade.

(Reporting by Helena Soderpalm; Editing by Simon Johnson)