Summary: Foreign brand passenger automobile sales in China in 2012

A total of 8.95 million foreign brand passenger automobiles were sold in China in 2012. Although the figure represents year-on-year growth of 8.3 percent, which is far above the industry average of 7.7 percent, foreign enterprises' growth rates were below those of domestic own brand manufacturers in the latter half of the year. Foreign manufacturers' combined share in the Chinese passenger automobile market grew 0.3 percent over the year, reaching a high of 67.8 percent.

Comparing their sales performances, foreign manufacturers' average year-on-year growth rates exceeded those of domestic own brand manufacturers from January to June and in August. Starting in September, however, growth rates of foreign companies started falling behind those of their domestic rivals. Those growth rates further fell into the negative ranges in September, October and December.

Foreign brands' poor sales growth rates overall were due mainly to the sharp sales declines Japanese manufacturers suffered following escalation of the Diaoyu Islands territorial dispute between China and Japan. Japanese manufacturers' combined sales were 9.7 percent lower in 2012 than they were in 2011, while their market share shrunk to 19 percent. Their combined sales growth rate reached a low of negative 58.5 percent in October, while their share in the passenger automobile market totaled just nine percent. Both the growth rates and market share started recovering from November on, but were still lower than pre-September levels.

Among the Japanese manufacturers active in the country, Nissan, Toyota and Honda performed slightly better than Suzuki, Mazda and Mitsubishi, whose sales growth rates were in the negative double digits.

In comparison with Japanese manufacturers, German, American and Korean brands' performances were much stronger.

German brands' sales grew the quickest of all the foreign manufacturers. A total of 2.87 million German branded vehicles were sold in 2012, 19 percent over the 2.51 million vehicles sold the previous year. German manufacturers' combined share in the passenger automobile market exceeded those of Japanese enterprises from 2011 to 2012. The FAW Volkswagen joint venture's performance was especially strong, with its sales for the year totaling 1.33 million units. Shanghai VW's sales for the year totaled 1.28 million units.

American and Korean automobile brands' sales increased 18.2 percent and 14 percent from 2011 to 2012, respectively. Their respective market shares grew 1.2 percent and .5 percent.