Overall the Chinese market improved by 16% in year on year comparison with 1.61 million units being sold according to CAAM, this figure includes. The news is likely to be a welcome relief for manufacturers in China who have increasingly seen their level of stock at dealerships mount amid rumors of a slowing economy. Rumors of government intervention to improve the market by lowering sales tax as they did in 2009 are likely to be shelved for the time being as the market finds its feet once again. May seems to have been an okay month for the Chinese car industry, sales are finally moving in an upwards direction rather than downwards as they have been doing for the previous four months of the year. Interestingly figures from CAAM show that SUV’s are the hottest thing to sell right now in China, despite gas prices being at an all time high. The SUV market was blessed in late April early May with the launch of several SUV superstars such as the Honda CRV and facelift Toyota Highlander, both of which likely added to the figures.
Sales of SUV’s increased by 49% in May, production was ramped up 61% to keep up with demand. The best sellers were of course the Great Wall Hover series which sold 22,189 units, the CRV sold 16,034 units, the VW Tiguan sold 14,012 and both the Audi Q5 and Toyota RAV4 were hovering around the 10,000 marker.
The top selling cars over the course of May were:
The SUV segment showed more signs of Chinese life with Great Wall playing an active part in the segment:
How about Chinese domestic brands? See them highlighted below in red. It’s a tough month for the local brands that seem to occupy the lower end of the segment.
The above 20 brands were the best selling brands in China over the course of May, all together they accounted for 945,531 sales, but once broken down into foreign V’s Chinese sales, its a different story: 711,756 cars sold were to foreign brands (exc sub brands) with the remaining 252,773 cars (inc sub brands) were to Chinese brands. The real shocker is Mercedes’ low sales in the China market, only 7,251 Chinese made cars sold in May.
Changan, Great Wall and Brilliance should all be coloured in red. And where is Trumphci?
It is important also to note just how new some of these Chinese brands are. They are at a very early stage of development, and are having to hold their own in the most competitive market in the world.
Chinese brands are becoming stronger much more quickly as a result of the intense competition.
Sorry for missing those, I will edit them in later.
Trumpchi sold 1378 vehicles last month. This list is only the top 40. The bottom of the list is actually Hawtai who sold 3 vehicles last month.
I understood that Trumpchi’s annualised sales were much closer to 100,000 units than 10,000.
And just three vehicles sold in a month by Hawtai seems even more odd.
Are there are any special factors which may have affected the recorded sales figures for those two brands for this particular month? I think this deserves greater analysis.
Trumpchi’s sales are still very low, mostly due to them being a one brand line up and no real defining factor behind the brand. Are they sports orientated? Business orientated? Family orientated？ Are they going after people who would buy a Civic? Basically – their marketing is a bit of a mess.
Hawtai sells cars under another name for their SUV range, those sales are not exactly great, but not bad either.
The Trumpchi product range is small but their products look great (and distinctive) and by all accounts are well made and drive well.
Hopefully GAC can sort out their marketing and start to get the sales they deserve.
Agreed. I saw a GS5 for the first time outside of an auto show yesterday in Changshu, and I have to say it strikes an imposing figure on the road, I quite like it but I think the price is a little high. I did say that Roewe 750′s were priced overly high when first launched, so obviously I know nothing….
Kindly advice on the most appropriate site to obtain monthly domestic & exports sales figures for each respective brands (in China). Thank you.