Domestic auto sales double digit growth in April

Since the spring, the domestic automobile market has continued to maintain a good growth trend. According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in April, the automobile production was 1,899,400, an increase of 15.29% over the same period of last year; sales were 1,841,700, an increase of 13.38% over the same period of the previous year. . In January-April, automobile production and sales completed 7,296,500 vehicles and 7,266,200 vehicles, which represented an increase of 13.4% and 13.2% year-on-year respectively. The overall increase in automobile production and sales benefited from the substantial increase in both passenger and commercial vehicles. In April, the production and sales of passenger cars completed 1,498,600 and 1,441,400 respectively, which represented an increase of 14.8% and 13.0% respectively from the same period of the previous year; from January to April, the production and sales of passenger cars completed 588.19 million units and 5,864,500 units respectively, which was a year-on-year increase respectively. 15.9% and 16.2%. Also in April, the production and sales of commercial vehicles completed 400,800 vehicles and 403,000 vehicles, respectively, an increase of 17% and 14.9% over the same period of the previous year; from January to April, the production and sales of commercial vehicles were completed 1,414,600 and 1,401,700, respectively. Year-on-year growth of 4.2% and 2.4%.

In April, especially in January-April, the following points appeared in the production and sales of automobiles:

First of all, the growth in the production and sales of self-owned brand passenger cars has resulted in a slight increase in the overall market share. Great Wall Motor has become the leading brand of independent brands.

In April, the sales of self-owned brand passenger cars were 571,200, an increase of 9.9% over the same period of the previous year, and accounted for 39.6% of the total sales of passenger cars, down 1.1% from the same period of last year.

From January to April, the sales of self-owned brand passenger cars were 2,484,300, an increase of 16.3% over the same period of last year, which was higher than the overall growth rate of passenger cars by 0.1%. It accounted for 42.4% of the total passenger vehicle sales, slightly higher than the same period of last year.

In terms of business, in April, the top five companies for self-owned brand passenger vehicles were: Great Wall, Geely, BYD, Chang'an, and Chery. They sold 54,100 vehicles, 44,500 vehicles, 39,900 vehicles, 37,400 vehicles, and 31,800 vehicles, respectively. Among them, as the only independent company ranked among the top ten passenger vehicles, Great Wall Motor's growth was as high as 49.9% year-on-year. This is mainly due to the rapid growth of the Great Wall Auto's Haval brand, such as the Great Wall Haval H6 and Haval M4 sales of 15,400 and 10,300, respectively, in the entire SUV market are ranked in the top five, also led to an increase of 87.1% in all SUV sales to 33,000 vehicles.

From January to April, the top 5 companies selling their own brands were Great Wall Motors, Geely Automobile, BYD, Changan Automobile, and Chery Automobile. They sold 205,300, 187,200, 182,700, 177,800 and 169,900 vehicles, respectively. Among them, Great Wall Motor's sales increased by 52.3% year-on-year, and it was also the only independent company with sales exceeding 200,000 units; Changan Automobile sales soared by 121%, the highest increase among the top five independent companies; and Chery’s auto sales decreased by 7.9% year-on-year.

Second, Volkswagen brand cars continue to maintain high growth, indicating that they have not been significantly affected by events such as the “DSG storm”.

As the largest single brand in the world, Volkswagen’s brand of passenger vehicles delivered 185,800 vehicles to consumers in China (including Hong Kong) in April, which was 169,900 units in the same period of last year, an increase of 9.4% year-on-year. From January to April, a total of 783,900 vehicles were delivered by the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand in China, compared with 653,300 in the same period of last year, an increase of 20.0% year-on-year. In addition, thanks to the spur of the Chinese market, Volkswagen’s sales in the Asia Pacific region in the first four months still rose by 17.9% year-on-year, from 725,100 to 855,100.

For Volkswagen's performance in the Chinese market, people are most concerned about the issue of dual-clutch gearboxes exposed by the media during the “3.15” period this year. From the April market data alone, the impact of this incident is far from what people think.

At the corporate level, in April, FAW-Volkswagen’s Volkswagen brand sold 83,987 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 16.6%; Shanghai Volkswagen’s mass-market sales reached 105,820 units, a year-on-year increase of 16.1%.

At the product level, in April, Passat and Magotan sold 21,506 cars and 11,212 cars respectively, which still leads the domestic B-class market; while CC sales reached 4,074 units, a year-on-year increase of 66%, and also led the sporty B-class market segment. The new Langyi sold 29,271 units, while the Lam Yit family sold 33,933 units a month, an increase of 70% year-on-year, leading the entire A-class market; the new Sagitar to 20985 units, an increase of 159.4% monthly sales, becoming the benchmark for the domestic A + class market In addition, the new Jetta, the new Bora, and the new Santana sold 20,335, 18,136 and 13,722 vehicles respectively; golf sales were 9,245. City SUV products - Tiguan sold 13,192 vehicles.

The above models all belong to the application range of the VW 7-speed dry double-clutch gearbox that was exposed, but the overall sales volume did not drop significantly.

Third, the decline in the number of Japanese cars has slowed down year-on-year, but it has not yet reached the so-called “reversal of negative momentum” and “sales rebound”.

According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in April, sales of German, Japanese, American, Korean, and French passenger cars (joint venture products) accounted for 19.3%, 16.1%, and 12.5% ​​of the total sales of passenger cars, respectively. , 9.1% and 3.1%. Compared with the same period of last year, the Japanese system still fell by nearly 3 percentage points, but the decline has narrowed significantly and other systems have grown.

From January to April, the cumulative market shares of German, Japanese, American, Korean, and French passenger cars were 19.1%, 14.1%, 12%, 9%, and 3.2%, respectively. Compared with the growth in the same period of last year, the Japanese system decreased by 12.9%, which was 3.1 percentage points lower than the first quarter; the growth rates of the German, U.S., Korean, and legal systems were both above 20%.

At the corporate level, in April, Toyota Motor sold 76,400 vehicles in the Chinese market, a decrease of approximately 6.5% year-on-year. From January to April, Toyota sold 261,100 vehicles in the Chinese market, which fell 10.9% year-on-year.

Honda Motors sold 60,596 vehicles in the Chinese market in April, a 2.4% decrease from April 2012. From January to April, Honda sold a total of 200976 vehicles in China, a decrease of 4.4% year-on-year.

In April, Mazda sold 12,353 vehicles in the Chinese market, down 15.2% year-on-year. In the first four months, Mazda sold 57,588 vehicles in China, down 20.2% year-on-year.

Suzuki Motor sold 18,134 vehicles in the Chinese market in April, a sharp drop of 24.0% year-on-year. The decline has increased since the first few months of this year.

In April, Nissan’s sales in the Chinese market reached 102,800 units, a year-on-year increase of 2.7%. However, the only positive increase in the number of Japanese brands has Nissan’s “interpretation”: In April 2012, Nissan’s sales volume in China was 112,365 units, which fell by 8.5% year-on-year, based on absolute figures. However, Dongfeng Nissan, a joint venture in China, has been reorganized. Some models have been assigned to Dongfeng Motor Group and will no longer be included in Nissan sales statistics. As a result, Nissan’s sales in China rose by 2.7% year-on-year in April.

It can be seen that Japanese cars are far from reaching the individual news saying “turning the tide” and “recovering sales rebound”.