Top 20 best-selling passenger automobiles from January to May of 2015

Nearly halfway through 2015, there have been as many automotive manufacturers posting strong sales results as those posting lackluster ones. According to statistics compiled by Gasgoo.com (Chinese), a total of 8.11 million passenger automobiles have been sold from January to May, representing positive year-on-year growth of 8.8%.

Of the 20 top-selling passenger automobiles sold over the first five months of the year, six come from both of the VW-affiliated joint ventures, four of which made the top 10. However, only the Jetta and Tiguan respectively achieved slight positive year-on-year sales growth rates of 2.2% and 1.7%, while the other six suffered negative growth rates. Among them, the Lavida, Santana and Passat saw their sales fall over 10%, while the Sagitar’s sales decreased by nearly that much. This makes the Jetta and Tiguan’s increasing sales all the more important in ensuring that VW was able to maintain its sales in the first half of this year. Sales of Chinese-made VWs decreased a slight 3.5% from last year.

Shanghai GM’s Cruze, New Sail and Excelle all made the top 20 sales chart, claiming the fourteenth to sixteenth spots. The sales of the three models all decreased from last year’s volumes. The Buick Excelle’s sales fell the most, decreasing 19.3%, due primarily to the declining popularity of the previous generation Excelle. Whether or not the new generation model will help the Excelle return to its former glory remains to be seen.

SAIC-GM-Wuling’s Wuling Hongguang leads the passenger automobile market by a considerable margin, with a total number of 277,026 units sold. Precise market positioning and a high degree of value for money have allowed the Hongguang to capture the interest of consumers across the Chinese market. The brand new Baojun 730’s market performance was also very commendable, with a total of 136,535 units sold from January to May.

Two Ford models, the new Escort and the Focus, also made the sales charts, with their sales totaling 89,173 units and 117,248 units, respectively.

One of the two Japanese brand models making the charts, the Nissan Blue Sylphy, achieved sales of 117,680 units, representing negative year-on-year growth of 2.8%. The other, the Toyota Corolla, saw its sales for the same time span over double, with a total of 87,894 units sold.

Three own brand models, the Great Wall Haval H6, Geely Emgrand EC7 and Changan Eado, made the top 20 chart with sales of 148,548 units, 89,118 units and 86,337 units, respectively. All three models achieved positive year-on-year sales growth. Sales growth rates of the H6, EC7 and Eado were 25.2% 64.8% and 40.2%, respectively.