A total of 1.73 million passenger automobiles were sold in the month of May, according to statistics from Gasgoo.com (Chinese). That figure represents year-on-year growth of 13.6%. 652,022 of these vehicle sales were from own brand manufacturers, representing positive year-on-year growth of 20.3%. By comparison, joint venture automobile sales only grew 9.9%. Joint venture sales for the month totaled 1.07 million units. Sales growth of JV vehicles were far below both own brand passenger automobile sales and the market average. JV sales accounted for 62.3% of all passenger automobiles sold in May, down from 64.4% sold the previous year, while own brand automobile sales grew from 35.6% in May 2015 to 37.7% this May.
Looking at individual segments, sedans still accounted for the majority of JV passenger automobile sales in May, totaling 766,076 units, up 3.1% from 742,762 units a year ago. Despite that year-on-year growth, the proportion of JV sales coming from sedans decreased from 75.6% in May of last year to 71.0% this year. JVs have edged out own brand manufacturers in the sedan segment, with the top ten sedan manufacturers of the month all being JV enterprises.
JVs have also benefited from the increasing popularity of SUVs in the country, with JV brand SUV sales increasing 31.7% from 223,039 units sold last May to 293,766 units sold this May. That growth rate is slightly under the market average of 37.4%. SUV sales accounted for 27.2% of all JV vehicles sold in the month of May, up 22.7% from the previous month. This increase is reflective of the growing attention JVs are giving to the SUV segment, with new JV brand models being released. However, own brands have been edging JVs as of late, with the top ten sales charts containing more and more own brand models.
Finally, in the MPV segment, JV models lag far behind own brand manufacturers. A total of 19,139 JV brand MPVs were sold in May 2016, up 18.2% from 16,193 units sold a year ago. That growth rate is under the market average of 19.4%. JV models haven’t ranked very high in the MPV sales charts, with only the Buick GL8 managing to rank in the top ten this month.
