January 2012 was host to the Chinese New Year which sees 1.3 billion people head home for a once per year two week (or longer) break, that translates into less sales times for car sellers during the CNY period but strong sales ahead of it. With the New Year falling in February this year, almost all car brands are recording record sales (we say almost because the Chinese brands rarely report sales until after the tenth of the month).

Official sales figures from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers will be released tomorrow instead of on the usual tenth of the month due to Chinese New Year falling on Feb 9th this year.

Here’s the sales round up so far:

• Ford sales are up 98% to 61,475 vehicles in Jan 2013. The Focus counted for half of those sales with 33,632 units sold, an impressive 296,360 Focus models were sold in 2012! Mondeo sales in January were up 75 percent, with 7,068 wholesales sold. Edge sales also grew, up 55 percent from last year, with 940 wholesales sold last month.
• Mercedes sales grew 9.2%, with total sales reaching just over 16,000 units. The Smart brand actually fell by 4.2% with sales dropping to 7,285 units.
• Audi sales jumped to 37428 vehicles in January, growth of 38.5%.
• GM announced its all time record month in January with sales over 300,000 units
  • Buick sales in China rose 21.7 percent from the first month of 2012 to 86,509 units.
  • Chevrolet sales in the domestic market rose 21.6 percent year on year to 66,141 units in January.
  • Cadillac luxury vehicle sales in China totaled 1,570 units in January.
  • The Baojun car brand in China, had sales of 7,018 units.
  • Wuling sales in China totaled 144,801 units in January, which was up 35.9 percent from the same month last year.
• Toyota actually saw sales rise to 72,500 cars, an increase of 23.5 percent – the first sales increase since June 2012.
• Honda sales rose to 47,248 cars, an increase of 22%
• Nissan sold 115,700 vehicles in China in January, up 22.2 per cent from a year earlier
• Beijing Hyundai Motor Co. and Dongfeng Yueda Kia Motor Co sold 163,090 units last month, up 66.4 percent from a year earlier. The total breaks down to 107,888 units for Beijing Hyundai and 55,202 units for Dongfeng Yueda Kia.
• Mazda seems to be the odd one out with sales dropping to 16.1% to just 19,068 cars, still better than December 2012 where sales dropped 24%.
• Still waiting on BMW’s figures – perhaps on Thursday.