The SUV market in China continues to rush ahead in 2016, with the bulk of SUV sales coming from domestic own brand manufacturers. According to statistics compiled by Gasgoo.com (Chinese), a total of 1.14 million own brand SUVs were sold in the first quarter of this year, up 58.0% from the 726,071 own brand SUVs sold in the first quarter of last year. Own brand SUVs made up 58.4% of all SUVs sold in the country, with their year-on-year growth rate exceeding the market average of 51.9%.
Great Wall Motor was the biggest seller of own brand SUVs of in the first quarter of the year, followed by Changan Automobile, SAIC-GM-Wuling, JAC Motor, GAC Motor, Zotye Automobile, BYD, Brilliance Automobile, Chery Motor and BAIC Yinxiang Automotive. The aforementioned automobile manufacturers sold a total of 846,722 own brand SUVs, accounting for 73.8% of all own brand SUVs sold in the quarter.
Great Wall Motor sold a total of 192,358 SUVs over the first months of the year, ranking well ahead of its rivals in the own brand SUV segment. Great Wall has shifted away from its sedan models to focus nearly exclusively on the SUV segment. Its ever-popular Haval H6 has managed to achieve sales of 121,325 units over the first quarter, up 38.3% year-on-year. This one model accounted for 63.1% of all of Great Wall’s quarterly sales.
Changan ranked second on the SUV charts with total SUV sales of 122,803 units, representing year-on-year growth of 34.3%. Changan benefited greatly from the sales of two popular models, the CS75 and CS35, whose sales grew 58.3% and 7.0%, year-on-year.
SAIC-GM-Wuling ranked third on the sales charts. The joint venture’s SUV sales exclusively came from the Baojun 560, whose quarterly sales totaled 113,049 units.
Among the other SUV manufacturers, GAC Motor, Zotye and Brilliance all posted impressive year-on-year sales growth rates in the triple digits. GAC’s performance was especially noteworthy, as its SUV sales increased 513.9% from 12,497 units in the first quarter of last year to 76,713 units in the first quarter of this year. A great deal of this success was due to the performance of the Trumpchi GS4, whose quarterly sales totaled 73,583 units, making it one of the top three best-selling SUV models of the quarter. Zotye and Brilliance posted year-on-year sales growth rates of 119.7% and 291.3%, respectively.
JAC and BYD also posted good results. The two manufacturers’ SUV sales totaled 88,945 units and 50,295, equivalent to year-on-year growth rates of 46.0% and 44.0%, respectively.
By comparison, Chery and BAIC Yinxiang’s sales were about on par with the amount sold the previous year. Chery suffered from the declining sales of its Tiggo 3 SUV, whose sales decreased 11.5%, while sales of most BAIC Yinxiang models fell by the double digits.
