Sales of foreign-branded automobiles in China from January to June of 2015

Foreign brands still make up most of the sales in the passenger automotive market, with their combined market share exceeding those of own brand manufacturers. However, as own brands experience rapid growth, they have been managed to close the gap with foreign brands. According to statistics from Gasgoo.com (Chinese), own brands’ combined sales over the first six months of the year grew 25.1%, while foreign brands’ combined sales for the same time period decreased 1.1%. A total of 5.94 million foreign brand automobiles have been sold over the first six months of the year. Foreign brands’ control a combined 62.4% stake in the Chinese passenger automotive market for the first half of the year, down 5.3 points from 67.7% last year.

VWs were the best-selling foreign brand automobiles in China from January to June. It was followed by Hyundai-Kia, GM, Toyota, Ford, Honda, Nissan, PSA, BMW and Mazda. The top three of VW, Hyundai-Kia and GM suffered negative sales growth this year.

A total of 1.74 million VWs have been sold in China over the first six months of the year, 5.6% less than last year. This fall was due mainly to the major sales decline of FAW-VW. FAW-VW has suffered negative sales growth ever since February, with its sales decline reaching a maximum low of 29.5% in June. Fellow joint venture Shanghai VW has also suffered minor sales decreases over the course of the year.

This year originally got off to a good start for Hyundai-Kia, with their sales increasing until April. However, from May onwards, sales of Hyundai and Kia models in China began to decrease, with their combined sales in June falling a full 29.1%. A total of 813,386 Hyundai and Kia vehicles were sold over the first six months of the year.

A total of 789,127 GMs were sold in China over the first half of the year, down 4.1% from the previous year. Shanghai GM performed strongly in June, when it sold 137,623 vehicles, surpassing long-standing rival Shanghai VW in the monthly sales charts.

Despite the overall decline in passenger automobile sales growth so far this year, several Japanese manufacturer have still managed to report positive sales growth. Toyota, Honda and Mazda all posted positive sales growth rates for six-month time period. Toyota, Honda and Mazda’s sales totaled 463,726 units, 409,225 units and 112,567 units, respectively. Among them, Honda and Mazda managed to achieve double-digit positive growth rates of 19.9% and 22.9%， respectively. However, not everything was good news for Japanese manufacturers, with Nissan suffering slight negative sales growth of 8.8%. Particularly in February, Nissan reported that its sales fell a full 34.7%.

Both Ford and PSA also achieved slight positive sales growth. Sales for the two brands totaled 428,409 units and 362,544 units, representing positive year-on-year sales growth rates of 7.7% and 2.7%, respectively.