The SUV market continued to maintain high growth rates into the end of 2015. According to statistics from Gasgoo.com (Chinese), a total of 5.47 million SUVs have been sold in the country from January to November, representing year-on-year growth of 51.5%. SUV models accounted for 30.7% of all passenger automobiles sold in the country over the 11 month time period.
However, while the SUV market as a whole performed very well, the bulk of the sales growth came from models sold by domestic own brand manufacturers. By comparison, sales of foreign branded SUVs, while respectable, were not nearly as remarkable. Foreign brand SUVs totaled 2.55 million units. That figure is equivalent to a year-on-year growth rate of 26.9%, far less than the SUV market average. Foreign brand models comprised 46.6% of all SUV sales made from January to November, down 9 percentage points from a year ago.
When it came to SUV sales, Japanese manufacturers led other foreign brands by a large margin. Japanese SUV sales from January to November totaled 883,120 units, up 28.7% year-on-year. By comparison, sales of German, American and Korean SUVs over the same timeframe totaled 548,583 units, 510,264 units and 392,578 units, respectively. While year-on-year sales growth rates for German and Korean SUVs hovered around the 10.0% mark, American manufacturers saw their SUV sales grow by a rather large 44.7% year-on-year. This was due mainly to the warm reception several newly released American SUV models attracted.
Looking at the top ten rankings for foreign brand SUV sales in China from January to November, the dominance of Japanese manufacturers is impossible to deny, with over half of the top ten best-selling models being of Japanese brands. The VW Tiguan was the best-selling SUV in China over that time period, followed by the Nissan X-Trail, Buick Envision, Honda CR-V, Ford Kuga, Honda Vezel, Honda XR-V, Audi Q5, Toyota RAV4 and Hyundai ix35. Combined sales of the aforementioned ten models exceeded 1.30 million units, accounting for 51.1% of all foreign brand SUVs sold in the country.
The VW Tiguan led foreign brand SUV sales in November, achieving year-on-year sales growth of 64.2%. With 236,916 units sold, the VW Tiguan was the second best-selling SUV over the 11 month time period from January to November. That figure represented year-on-year growth of 6.6%.
The Tiguan’s had a lead of several thousand sales over the second best-selling foreign brand SUV, the Nissan X-Trail. However, the X-Trail, which is the most successful Japanese SUV model, still managed to post very strong year-on-year sales growth of 44.8% for its sales from January to November.
The Honda CR-V, which used to lead the SUV charts in years past, has seen its sales in the country fall this year. A total of 137,247 CR-Vs were sold from January to November, down 7.2% from the 147,858 CR-Vs sold the same time a year ago. The Toyota RAV4 also saw its sales decrease. The RAV4’s sales from January to November totaled 103,289 units, down 5.1% from its sales records a year ago. Sales of the two other Honda models on the chart, the Vezel and the XR-V, totaled 108,509 units and 107,962 units, respectively.
The Buick Envision, which has only been on the market for just over a year, has surprisingly managed to accumulate 139,856 sales from January to November. This outstanding performance places it just behind the Tiguan and X-Trail in terms of total sales. The other American SUV that made the top ten chart was the Ford Kuga, whose sales totaled 121,617 units.
The only luxury SUV to make the top ten sales chart was the Audi Q5. The Q5’s sales from January to November totaled 103,827 units, up 5.5% year-on-year.
