Chinese minivan market in April

Thanks to changing consumer demands and ideals, the Chinese minivan market has managed to achieve outstanding growth over the past few years. Although the segment’s sales growth rates are still quite high, they are lower than this year than the previous year.

According to statistics compiled by Gasgoo.com (Chinese), a total of 170,789 minivans were sold in China during the month of April, 23.6% more than the 138,227 minivans sold the previous April. The sales growth rate, albeit high, was less than the over 40% growth reported last April.

Domestic own brand automakers remain the dominant force in the minivan segment, with the introduction of new models helping to further boost sales. Own brands dominated a 87% stake in the market in April. Own brand minivan sales grew 26% during the course of the month, with a total of 147,848 units sold.

By comparison, the sales performance of Sino-foreign joint venture minivans has been a lot less impressive. Only 22,941 foreign brand minivans were sold in China in April, up only 9.9% from the previous year. Foreign brand minivan sales accounted for only 13% of the country’s total minivan market segment.

SAIC-GM-Wuling’s Hongguang was the best-selling minivan in China for the month of April, while the JV’s Baojun 730 was the country’s second best-selling minivan. They were followed by the Dongfeng Fengxing Lingzhi, Changan Honor, BAIC Weiwang M20, Shanghai GM Buick GL8, Dongfeng Xiaokang Fengguang 330, JAC Refine, Guangqi Honda Jade and Chery Karry K50.

The Wuling Hongguang continues to be the best-selling minivan in the country. Even though it experienced an 11.5% fall in sales, its sales volume of 53,086 units is still over double the amount sold by its closest competitors. This one model accounts for over 30% of all minivans sold in China in the month of April.

Other models have been trying their best to increase their foothold in the market. One of the best examples of this effort is SAIC-GM-Wuling’s new Baojun 730, which was released last August. Sales for the new minivan totaled 26,003 units, the second-best sales performance for a Chinese minivan model.

Dongfeng’s Fengxing Lingzhi and Changan’s Honor were two other strongly performing minivan models, ranking in the third and fourth spots on the top ten sales chart, respectively. The Changan Honor managed to achieve strong sales growth of 25.7%, while sales of the Fengxing Lingzhi fell 10.9%.

A similar phenomenon was reported for the two best-selling JV models, the Buick GL8 and the Honda Jade. Sales of the former increased 19.9%, while those of the latter fell a full 23%.

Dongfeng’s Xiaokang Fengguang 330 experienced astounding sales growth, with the model’s April sales more than tripling from last year to this year. The BAIC Weiwang M20’s sales growth of 61.3% was also very commendable.