Summary of mainstream premium car brands' China sales in May

The China Passenger Car Association (CPCA)'s data showed that retail sales of China's locally-produced premium car brands, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Cadillac, Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, Infiniti and Acura, totaled 178,187 units in May with a year-on-year growth of 9.4%. Additionally, year-to-date deliveries also climbed 5.5% to 852,940 units despite a continuous downturn in overall China’s auto market.

Gasgoo hereby compiled sales data released by premium car makers and the CPCA. Although Lexus was not included in the CPCA's data because it has no China-made models, we added the brand into the table since it boasted the biggest year-on-year growth in May sales, which is really significant to China's luxury car market.

BMW

BMW (including Mini) outsold Mercedes-Benz and Audi in May, gaining the honor of champion among premium car brands by monthly China sales.

As to the year-to-date sales, BMW outperformed Mercedes-Benz for the first time in 2019.

The BMW X series and SUV family made a great contribution to BMW’s double-digit year-on-year growth, especially the locally-produced BMW X3. There were over 46,000 units of the all-new BMW X3 sold from January to May, among which the May sales amounted to roughly 10,800 units, over 2,000 units more than that of the Audi Q5 (8,613 units).

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz saw its China sales in May edge down 0.9% over a year ago to 55,589 units, while its Jan.-May sales still edged up 1.6% year on year to 287,639 units, accounting for 30.65% of the brand's global sales.

In May, sales of the Mercedes-Benz GLC rose 13.1% from the previous year to nearly 11,000 units, taking up nearly 20% of total China sales. The automaker stated that several mainstay models will get some revisions and it still forecasts a better sales performance with the all-new GLE and the upcoming all-new EQC pure electric SUV hitting the market.

The year of 2019 is the year of SUV for Mercedes-Benz's China business. The automaker will reportedly roll out around 10 SUV models in China over the next several months.   

Audi

Audi was the only German premium brand that faced negative growth in both May sales and Jan.-May sales in China. However, compared with the previous month, the carmaker still gained a slight growth of 3.4%.

Last month, the sales of Audi A4L grew 9.2% over a year ago to approximately 14,100 units and the sales of the Audi A8L surged 87.3%. Nevertheless, the sales of the Audi A6, amounting to 5,575 unit, were almost halved from the year-ago period. Some industrial people considered that the sharp decline should be mainly attributed to the model’s iteration—the all-new Audi A6L hit the China’s market in January 2019.

Cadillac

Cadillac regained the championship among the second-tier premium brands by China sales in May. Nevertheless, cumulative sales from January to May still dropped 5.0% from a year ago.

The XT5 was the hottest-selling model with 5,227 units sold in May, while the sales of the runner-up XTS were 4,876 units. The May sales of the CT6 represented a vigorous year-on-year growth up to 99.1% thanks to the improvements in exterior and powertrain after the all-new CT6 went on sale at the end of last November. Besides, the CT6 and the XT4 were faced with little pressure in liquidating inventories of China 5 vehicles because the main variants of the CT6 and the entire lineup of the XT4 satisfy the China 6 Standard.

Lexus

Lexus witnessed its China sales in May shoot up 150% over a year earlier to around 17,000 units. For the first five months, it also gained a remarkable growth of 27%.

It is noteworthy that the year-to-date sales the Lexus hybrid models exceeded 25,000 units, account for nearly 33% of its cumulative sales in this country.

Based on the current sales volume, the Toyota-owned premium brand is in all likelihood to achieve the 200,000-unit annual sales goal.

Volvo

Volvo's China sales in May jumped 17.4% from a year earlier mainly thanks to the 44% leap in XC60 sales (5,485 units) and 36.9% growth in S90 sales (3,681 units)

Meanwhile, the automaker has already sold 54,503 new cars in the world’s biggest auto market during the first five months, gaining an increase of 9.5%. 

Jaguar Land Rover

In May, Jaguar and Land Rover sold a total of 7,743 vehicles in China, posting a year-on-year decrease of 26.4%.

Although the downturn continued, 26.4% was much less than the 45.7% of year-on-year decrease for the month of April.  

Infiniti

According to the sales data released by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), sales of Infiniti-branded locally-produced models vigorously zoomed up 44.9% in May and leapt 33.9% year on year for the first five months.

The Japanese premium brand will relocate its head office from Hong Kong to Yokohama in the middle of next year in a push to centralize and streamline operations, the company said last month.

Acura

In sharp contrast with Infiniti's blooming growth, Acura only sold 516 vehicles in China last month, suffering a plunge of 67%, according to GAC Acura. In addition, its year-to-date sales also slumped 41.4% from the previous year.

The car brand will start to locally produce the all-new RDX SUVs in the year.