China’s PV wholesale volumes show first-time YoY drop of 4% in 2018

According to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), China's passenger vehicle (PV) retail sales reached 22,350,562 units in 2018, declining 5.8% over a year ago. Meanwhile, the country's PV wholesale volume also fell 4.0% from the previous year (the “PV” mentioned here refers to cars, SUVs and MPVs locally produced in China).

The YTD wholesale volumes for the car, MPV and SUV sectors all faced negative growth. Particularly, the full-year MPV wholesale volume dropped up to 16.9% over the year-ago period.

Last month, both PV retail sales and wholesale volume in China presented double-digit year-on-year (YoY) decrease. The reduction also fell on each vehicle sector.

Although the sales in December still retained the cooling trend from previous months, luxury vehicle retail sales grew 7.5% from the previous year. However, the retail sales of the mainstream joint-venture brands and China-owned brands slid 17% and 26% YoY respectively.

The CPCA's data show that the top 3 PV makers by wholesale volume in 2018 are still SAIC-Volkswagen, FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC-GM. SAIC-VW retained its sales crown with annual sales exceeding 2 million units for the third year in a row. The runner-up FAW-VW achieved a YoY growth of 4.1% with full-year sales also topping 2 million units. SAIC-GM, ranking third on the list, saw its 2018 sales edge down 1.5%.

Compared with 2017, Geely Auto moved up 2 places to the fourth. Actually, Geely occupied the fourth place in most days last year, yet dropped to the seventh in December. Changan Ford, who ranked ninth in 2017, was not included even the top 15 list in 2018 struck by its sales slump. SAIC Motor PV witnessed its annual sales aggressively grow 39.7%, ranking 11th. Besides, in December, the SAIC Motor’s self-owned subsidiary also entered the top 10 list.