July has been a very tough month for the Chinese passenger automobile market. Statistics from Gasgoo.com (Chinese) show that the total number of sales completed in the country totaled 1.21 million automobiles, which is down 5.4% from last year. Only the SUV segment was able to achieve positive sales growth, with its sales increasing 35.8% year-on-year. Minivan sales decreased 6.7%, while sedan sales fell a full 19.5% down to only 691,039 units. Among them, compact sedan sales totaled 111,448 units, down 16.4% from last year.
The Hyundai Mistra was the best-selling compact sedan in July. It was followed by the Toyota Camry, Ford New Mondeo, VW Magotan, Nissan New Teana, Hyundai Sonata, Honda Accord, Buick Regal, VW Passat and Chevrolet Malibu. With six of those models seeing their sales volumes decrease from the previous year and only one new model entering the list, it is clear to see that the compact segment is not performing as strongly as previous years.
Also worth mentioning is that no domestic own brand models made the top ten list this month. The best-selling own brand compact for the month was the Geely GC9, which finished just outside of the rankings at number 12.
Two of Beijing Hyundai’s models, the Mistra and the new Sonata made the top ten list. The Mistra leads the charts with sales of 10,025 units, down only 1.3% from the previous year. That sales figure puts the Mistra at the top of the charts. The new Sonata’s high levels of comfort and flashy exterior design has allowed it to gain a great deal of popularity since its launch in March. A total of 8,308 Sonatas were sold during the course of the month.
Only two compact sedans, both of which were Japanese models, saw their sales increase significantly in July. Sales of the New Teana and Accord, which totaled 8,431 units and 7,927 units, saw their sales increase 40.4% and 59.4%, respectively. However, sales of a fellow Japanese compact, the Camry, decreased 13.7%.
Meanwhile, sales of the New Mondeo increased a slight 0.7% to 9,121 units.
On the other hand, sales of VW models fell drastically over the course of the month. July sales of the Magotan and Passat totaled 9,024 units and 5,872 units, down 44.1% and 48.6%, respectively. Meanwhile sales of two GM models, the Buick Regal and Chevrolet Malibu, fell 22.0% and 49.1%, respectively.
With the compact segment beginning to contract, its importance in the grand scheme of the Chinese passenger automobile market has started to diminish. Only one compact sedan model this July managed to achieve sales of over 10,000 units, compared to four compacts last July. How the compact segment changes over the next few years is something that remains to be seen.
