Roewe Sales, not what we were lead to believe?

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A report in the Shanghai Daily is saying that Roewe sales are struggling, and they fell to an all time low of 595 sales in November. Previously we were told they were averaging 2000 units per month, and had a big waiting list!

Click continue reading to see the report!

SAIC Motor Co Ltd has started offering car loans on its self-owned Roewe sedans as the Chinese badge slowed in sales with intensified competition.

GMAC-SAIC, jointly formed by GMAC, the car loan unit of General Motors Corp, and SAIC Finance Corp, will provide the auto finance, SAIC Motor said in a statement yesterday.

Consumers buying a 2.5-liter Roewe 750 sedan, priced from 231,800 yuan (US$31,753), could be given the lowest down payment of 75,000 yuan and zero interest for the first year.

The offer began last week and will run until the end of next month, the statement said.

The car loan is part of SAIC’s leveraged efforts to rev up Roewe’s struggling sales since it began the domestic sales in March last year as China’s benchmark model for self-owned cars.

Sales of Roewe 750 slowed to 595 units in November, compared with an April high of 2,347 units, according to figures from Union of Passenger Car Market and Information. Its sales totaled at 17,000 units last year.

However, rival brands such as Honda’s Accord and Toyota’s best-selling Camry with a 2.0- or 2.4-liter engine posted average monthly sales of more than 10,000 units last year.

“China’s self-owned car models still lack of competitiveness against foreign brands,” said Jia Xinguang, former chief analyst from China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Jia also said Roewe 750 also takes on Nanjing Auto’s MG 7 series as they are overlapped models based on the same platform from the bankrupted British car maker MG Rover Corp.