Gasgoo compiled the sales data for the month of June released by nine major auto groups in China. GAC Group saw its sales rise compared with a year ago thanks to sound growth of two Sino-Japanese joint ventures and the resilient performance of GAC Trumpchi.
Four China's self-owned automakers, Geely Auto, Great Wall Motor, BYD and JAC Motors, all boasted year-on-year growth in June sales. Besides, Dongfeng Motor Group's monthly sales remained flat over a year ago.
SAIC Motor
SAIC Motor said on July 4 its vehicle sales for the first half of 2019 declined 16.62% year on year to 2,937,296 units. For the first six months, the auto group output a total of 2,857,259 vehicles, facing a double-digit drop of 20.8% over a year ago.
As to the June performance, SAIC Motor saw its sales and outputs slide 15.97% and 16.13% respectively from the previous year to 466,539 units and 464,635 units.
In June, SAIC-GM gained a slight year-on-year growth of 0.21%, while SAIC Volkswagen didn't get rid of the sales downturn. Among the subsidiaries whose June sales exceeded 10,000 units, SAIC-GM-Wuling suffered the biggest year-on-year decrease.
However, compared to the sales volume in May, half of subsidiaries achieved positive growth. The sales of the champion, SAIC Volkswagen, remained basically the same as that of a month ago.
FAW Group
FAW Group's vehicles outputs and wholesale volume for the first half of 2019 reached 1,598,970 units and 1,594,464 units respectively, the Chinese state-owned automaker announced via its WeChat account.
Its self-owned premium car brand Hongqi produced 36,807 vehicles through June, a year-on-year surge of 298.6%. For the first two quarters, the brand's total sales shot up 255% to 33,242 units, exceeding its full-year sales of 2018 (31,400 units).
For the month of June, Hongqi saw its sales surge 167% from the year-ago period to over 8,000 units, the 16th month in a row achieving year-on-year growth.
The year-to-date outputs and wholesale volume of Jiefang truck brand rose 20.9% and 6.7% over the previous year respectively to 199,320 units and 205,208 units.
In addition, FAW Car's Jan.-Jun. sales outputs and sales amounted to 89,474 units and 86,573 units, FAW Group said.
Joint ventures manufactured 1,262,528 vehicles during the first six months, among which FAW-Volkswagen and FAW-Toyota produced 892,696 units and 369,832 units respectively.
Moreover, two joint ventures sold 1,249,517 vehicles in total—869,484 units were from FAW-Volkswagen and 380,033 units were offered by FAW-Toyota.
Dongfeng Motor Group
Dongfeng Motor Group posted a tiny year-on-year sales decline of 0.2% in June, compared with the 11.13% decrease in May sales. For the first half of the 2019, sales of the auto group fell 8.99% from the previous year, 1.73 percentage points lowered than the drop in Jan.-May sales.
For the month of June, the automaker saw its PV sales edge up 0.17% thanks to the resilient SUV performance. Meanwhile, monthly car and MPV sales slid 3.9% and 20.17% respectively from a year earlier.
Dongfeng Motor Company Limited sold 127,072 vehicles last month, suffering a year-on-year decline of 3.05%. As to performance of specific branches, only Dongfeng Automobile Co.,Ltd gained a 3.87% increase, while the other branches were all hit by negative growth.
Dongfeng Honda boasted double-digit growth in both June sales and YTD sales. Nevertheless, two Sino-French joint ventures—Dongfeng Renault and DPCA—were still trapped in severe downturn. Especially, Dongfeng Renault came across a year-on-year nosedive of 75.97% in Jan.-Jun. sales.
GAC Group
GAC Group output 157,973 vehicles in June with a year on year decline of 19.12%, while its June sales climbed 5.59% from the previous year to 188,970 units, the automaker said on July 5.
Although CV sales in June slumped 59.8% over a year ago to only 203 units, the 5.78% year-on-year growth in PV sales (188,767 units) still enabled the total sales to grow positively.
Aside from GAC FCA, GAC Mitsubishi and GAC Hino, the other subsidiaries all gained positive sales growth in June. The first two places by monthly sales were still occupied by GAC Honda and GAC Toyota whose sales rose 8.63% and 8.82% from the year-ago period respectively. Based on the data previously collected by Gasgoo, both joint ventures never came across year-on-year downturn so far this year.
A bright spot should be highlighted is that GAC Motor saw its monthly sales jump 18.92% year on year after suffering 5 consecutive months of decrease. Nevertheless, the GAC's self-owned brand still posted 30.3% drop in year-to-date sales affected by steep sales decline for the first five months.
Changan Automobile
Changan Automobile announced sales in June of 141,655 vehicles, a 24.8% decrease compared to the same period last year, while a 24.8% jump over the previous month.
For the first half of the year, Changan Automobile witnessed its vehicle sales slump 31.7% year on year to 825,208 units.
Changan Ford still confronted a 44.5% year-on-year sales plunge in June, while its retail sales amounted to 26,057 units, the company said.
In the meantime, wholesale volume of Changan's self-owned vehicles reached 105,437 units in June, rising 18.9% from the previous month, the automaker announced via its WeChat account.
Besides, the automaker's NEV arm sold 9,896 vehicles last month, posting a significant year-on-year increase of 108.8%.
Geely Auto
Geely Automobile (the Group) announced on July 8 that its vehicle sales (including the volume of Lynk & Co-branded vehicles) in June edged up 0.63% over a month ago to 90,875 units as the Group continued to reduce accumulated inventories of the dealers.
However, compared with 128,449 vehicles sold in the year-ago period, the automaker still faced a slump of 29.25%.
Of the total sales volume in June, 15,985 units were new energy and electrified vehicles (NEEVs). Meanwhile, Geely Automobile's export volume surged by more than twofold from the year ago to 6,234 units.
For the first half of the year, the Group's cumulative sales volume reached 651,680 units, sliding approximately 15% from the year-ago period and completing 43% of the Group's full-year sales target of 1.51 million units in 2019.
The Group said its management team is to revise downward the 2019 annual sales goal by 10% to 1.36 million units from 1.51 million units due to the continuous uncertainties in China's PV market and its determination to proactively reduce the aggregate inventories of its dealers which partly led to the lower-than-expected Jan.-Jun. sales.
Great Wall Motor
Great Wall Motor sold a total of 493,538 new vehicles for the first half of 2019, gaining a year-on-year increase of 4.7%. For the month of June, 63,299 vehicles were sold by the carmaker.
Amongst the vehicle sold from January to June, 352,872 units, 46,884 units and 27,013 units were offered by Haval, WEY and ORA brands respectively.
Last month, Great Wall Motor exported 6,711 new cars in total, an impressive year-on-year surge of 83.3%. Year-to-date export volume amounted to 30,305 units, jumping 29.4% from the previous year.
The SUV brand Haval sold 45,256 units last month, a month-on-moth growth of 5% and a year-on-year increase of 7.4%. Meanwhile, its cumulative sales for the first two quarters also rose 8.5% from the year-ago period.
Premium SUV brand WEY saw its June sales grow 8.7% over the previous month to 6,755 units. It's year-to-date sales were 46,884 units, among which 28,248 units were from the WEY VV6.
The young NEV brand ORA sold 3,762 vehicles in June and recorded a sales volume of 27,013 units for the first half of 2019.
BYD
BYD said on July 5 that its vehicle sales in the first half of 2019 edged up 1.59% year on year to 228,072 units, entirely thanks to the robust growth in year-to-date (YTD) sales of new energy vehicles (NEV).
During the first two quarters, the automaker saw its NEV sales skyrocket 94.5% to 145,653 units, counteracting the 44.91% slump falling on fuel-burning vehicle sales.
Among NEVs sold from January to June, PV sales surged 97.5% from a year ago to 140,761 units. Of that, PHEV sales edged down 5.16% over the previous year to 44,982 units, while BEV sales tremendously grew 301.76% to 95,779 units.
Regarding the sales performance in June, BYD sold a total of 38,735 vehicles with a year-on-year increase of 3.08% despite the 40.63% plunge for the fossil fuel-powered vehicle sales.
The June sales were still driven by NEV sales growth. The company said its NEV sales amounted to 26,571 units last month, compared with 17,088 vehicles sold in the same period a year earlier. Of that, PV sales vigorously jumped 146.43% to 18,864 units, but PHEV sales represented 19% year-on-year decrease to 6,985 units.
JAC Motors
Sales of JAC Motors in June apparently rose 11.47% year on year, while year-to-date sales still fell 6.78%.
Monthly PV sales zoomed up 52.56% to 17,232 units, among which sedan sales skyrocketed 147.68% to 4,971 units. Besides, SUV sales and MPV sales reached 9,740 units and 2,521 units, growing 39.48% and 9.37% from the year-ago period respectively.
Export volume in June plunged 46.93% to 3,863 units, which made the year-to-date volume totaled 25,035 units, slumping 38.4% over the year prior.
The NEV sector still presented a robust growth momentum. Sales of new energy PVs reached 9,842 units last month and 39,065 units through May, zooming up 429.42% and 95.01% respectively.
