Chinese compact SUV market in 2015

The SUV market continues to be dominated by compact SUV sales. According to statistics from Gasgoo.com (Chinese), a total of 3.52 million compact SUVs were sold in 2015, representing year-on-year growth of 36.0%. However, that year-on-year growth rate is far less than the average SUV market growth rate of 52.7%. Compact SUVs account for 56.1% of all SUVs sold in China in 2015, down 6.9 percentage points from the previous year.

Domestic own brand manufacturers continue to be the chief driving force within the SUV market. Own brand compact SUV sales totaled 1.97 million units, representing year-on-year growth of 90.8%. Own brand manufacturers made 56.0% of all compact SUVs sold in the country over the course of year, up 16.1 percentage points from 2014. Newly released own brand compact SUV models have received a great deal of praise and accumulated both popularity and sales in the country.

Sales of Japanese compact SUVs continued to fall, with only the Nissan X-Trail seeing its sales increase in 2015. Korean compact SUV sales also fell, decreasing 12.3%. By comparison, German and French compact SUV sales grew 11.3% and 11.2% year-on-year, respectively.

The Great Wall Haval H6 was the best-selling compact SUV of the year, followed by the VW Tiguan, Changan CS75, Nissan X-Trail, BYD S3, Honda CR-V, SAIC-GM-Wuling Baojun 560, Ford Kuga, GAC Trumpchi GS4 and Toyota RAV4. Own brands performed better than last year, with five of the year’s top ten selling models being domestic branded models.

The Great Wall Haval H6 continues to lead the segment with total sales of 373,229 units, far above its closest competitors. The Haval H6 has achieved year-on-year sales growth of 18.2%.

Also performing strongly were the Changan CS75 and BYD S3, whose annual sales totaled 186,623 units and 164,436 units, respectively.

The two other new own brand models that performed strongly were the newly-released SAIC-GM-Wuling Baojun 560 and GAC Trumpchi GS4. The Baojun 560, which was released in July, managed to achieve total sales of 145,007 units since its launch, while the Trumpchi GS4 accumulated total sales of 131,016 units since its April release. Monthly sales of both vehicles have actually exceeded those of the VW Tiguan, proving their competiveness in the market.

The only Japanese brand SUVs that made the top ten compact SUV sales charts were the Nissan X-Trail, Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4.