April sales summary of China’s mainstream automakers

China’s vehicle outputs and sales in April reached 2.052 million units and 1.9805 million units, declining 14.45% and 14.61% year on year respectively, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

For the first four months, the national vehicle outputs and sales amounted to 8.3886 million units and 8.3533 million units, dropping 10.98% and 12.12% from a year earlier.

According to the sales data released by some mainstream Chinese automakers, SAIC Motor, Dongfeng Motor Group, GAC Group, Changan Automobile and Geely Auto whose respective Apr. sales exceeded 100 thousand units, all faced negative growth. Meanwhile, Great Wall Motor and BYD maintained their rising impetus.  

SAIC Motor

SAIC Motor sold 456,826 vehicles in April, suffering a double-digit decrease of 19.73%, the automaker announced on May 7. This was the eighth month in a row recording year-on-year negative growth.

For the first four months, the China’s biggest auto group saw its year-to-date (YTD) sales slide 16.8% over a year earlier to 1,989,831 units. Compared with the 15.88% drop in Q1 sales, the decline has been slightly enlarged.

Aside from SAIC Maxus and SAIC Motor-CP, the other subsidiaries all posted sales shrink in April. The top 3 companies by the monthly sales were still SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling. However, by the end of April, all of them have been stuck in year-on-year drop for eight consecutive months.

Negative growth also reflected on model’s Jan.-Apr. sales performance. SAIC-GM-Wuling’s YTD sales faced a decline up to 26.53%. Nevertheless, SAIC Motor-CP achieved a substantial growth of 27.82%.

Dongfeng Motor Group

Dongfeng Motor Group sold 225,483 vehicles in April with a year-on-year drop of 12.38%. The monthly PV sales amounted to 177,995 units, shrinking 16.67% over a year ago. Of that, the respective sales of cars, SUVs and MPVs were 86,964 units (-17.25%), 79,089 units (-14.75%) and 11,942 units (-24.07%).

For the first four months, the group also posted a decrease of 10.61% with 901,511 vehicles sold in total. Year-to-date PV sales fell 13.77% from a year earlier to 739,271 units.

Dongfeng Venucia and Dongfeng Nissan—two major brands operated by Dongfeng Motor Company Limited—saw their April sales drop 28.33% and 10.91% year on year respectively. However, Dongfeng Nissan gained a slight increase of 0.56% in terms of Jan.-Apr. sales.

Dongfeng Honda posted double-digit growth in both April sales and year-to-date sales partly because of the diminished negative impact from the CR-V’s engine issue and substantial price cuts.

Nevertheless, two Sino-French joint ventures—Dongfeng Renault and DPCA—were still stranded in severe downturn last month. Especially, Dongfeng Renault only sold 547 vehicles, a year-on-year nosedive of 91.56%.

GAC Group

GAC Group’s sales slightly fell 4.62% in April and edged down 3.17% during the first four months. Most subsidiaries suffered year-on-year decrease in both monthly sales and year-to-date sales, while two main Sino-Japanese joint ventures—GAC Honda and GAC Toyota—successfully attained growth. 

By the end of April, GAC Honda and GAC Toyota sold 257,952 vehicles and 205,124 vehicles in this year, gaining 16.67% and 32.94% year-on-year sales jump. However, the other joint venture with Japanese automaker, GAC Mitsubishi, came across a two-digit decline of 16.56%.

Year-to-date PV sales of the company aggregated 650,382 units, edging down 3.12% from a year ago. Of that, the car and MPV sales leapt 23.58% and 42.81% respectively to 353,240 units and 31,660 units, while SUV sales slumped 26.92% to 265,482 units.

Changan Automobile

Chongqing Changan Automobile Co.,Ltd (Changan Automobile) sold 121,245 vehicles in April, posting a steep year-on-year drop of 35% and month-on-month decline up to 38.3%, the automaker said on May 10.

Regarding the first four months, sales of the Chongqing-based automaker slumped 32.5% from a year earlier to 570,056 units.

The downturn also reflected on most subsidiaries. Especially, two major joint ventures—Changan Ford and Changan Mazda—saw their sales in April tumbled 60.9% and 47% respectively.

Geely Auto

In April, Geely Auto sold 103,908 vehicles, which were 19.34% less than 128,817 units for the same period a year ago, according to the automaker’s official WeChat account.

By the end of April, a total of 470,496 vehicles have been sold this year by Geely, down by 8.67% year on year. The automaker has so far fulfilled 31.16% of its 1.51 million-unit annual sales target.

Excluding the Lynk & Co brand and three models launched after the midyear of 2018, the other models all suffered year-on-year decrease of over 20%. The April sales of the all-new Vision, the Emgrand GL, the Emgrand GS, the Vision SUV and the Vision S1 even represented decrease more than 40%. Especially, the sales of Vision S1 plunged 82.3% from 7,841 units to only 1,388 units.

The April sales of the Lynk 01, 02 and 03 amounted to 4,074 units, 2,011 units and 3,018 units respectively.

Great Wall Motor

Great Wall Motor has sold 367,680 vehicles in total for the first four months of the year, up by 8.65% compared with the year-ago period, the automaker announced on May 9.

Meanwhile, the company saw its sales in April edge up 2.5% year on year to 83,838 units. Of that, the sales of Haval, WEY, ORA and Wingle pickup brands reached 58,444 units, 7,293 units, 4,614 units and 13,099 units respectively.

The Haval SUV brand obtained a growth of 6.16% in April sales. As the hottest-selling SUV model in China, the Haval H6 had a sales volume of 28,045 units with a year-on-year drop of 17.55%. The monthly sales of the Haval M6 surpassed 10,000 units again, surging 147.56% from the previous year thanks to its outstanding cost performance.

Last month, the premium SUV brand WEY came across a year-on-year slump up to 44.49%. The sales of the WEY VV6 amounted to 4,106 units, shrinking the decreases over the VV5 (-84.81%) and the VV7 (-68.61%) to some extent.  

BYD

BYD Company Limited (BYD) reported that its April sales in 2019 slightly rose 1.27% over the year-ago period to 37,839 units. However, compared with the sales in March, it faced a double-digit dip of 19.19%.

The automaker has so far sold a total of 155,417 vehicles through April with a year-on-year growth of 4.21%.

In April, the fuel-burning vehicle sales were still stranded in the continuous downturn—13,828 units were sold with a year-on-year plunge of 41.02%. The sales of sedans and SUVs shrank 28% and 26.94% respectively to 3,121 units and 3,648 units, while the MPV sales were halved over a year ago to 7,059 units.

However, the sharp downturn over fuel-burning vehicles cannot entirely counteract the sales growth over new energy vehicles (NEVs). The carmaker saw its NEV sales volume in April soar 72.52% from the previous year to 24,011 units, finally helping BYD realize a positive growth in total sales.

JAC Motors

JAC Motors recorded year-on-year decline of 24.72% and 12.93% in April sales and Jan.-Apr. sales.

Among 12,891 PVs sold last month, 5,327 units, 3,278 units came from the SUV and MPV sectors respectively, both less than that of a year ago. Nonetheless, monthly car sales climbed 2.66% to 4,286 units.

Export volume in April tumbled 47.59% to 4,454 units, which made the year-to-date volume totaled 16,730 units, a slump of 39.21%.

The NEV sector still presented a robust growing momentum. Sales of new energy PVs amounted to 6,532 units in April and 21,539 units through April, surging 71.76% and 38.93% respectively.