China auto sales reached 2.573 million units in October, growing 12.5% from a year earlier and showing year-on-year increase for the seventh month in a row, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
Most mainstream automobile groups in China continued sales recovery last month. The ten companies hereby listed all achieved growth, some of which, such as GAC group, Changan Auto, Geely Auto and JAC Motors, have gained growth for seven straight months.
Notably, FAW Group joined the lineup of automakers whose year-to-date represented growth in October following Changan Auto and JAC Motors.
SAIC Motor records fifth-consecutive-month YoY growth in Oct.
SAIC Motor gained a 9.61% year-on-year growth in October with 596,719 new vehicles sold. Thanks to the fifth-consecutive-month increase, the decrease in year-to-date sales shrank to 15.09%.
SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW) was honored the No.1 subsidiary in terms of monthly sales for the third month in a row. It sold 179,000 vehicles last month, posting a robust 19.33% growth compared to the year-ago period.
According to SGMW, the Oct. sales of Wuling brand surged 50% over a year earlier to 131,655 units, and New Baojun saw its sales leap 29% month on month to 15,000 units.
SAIC-GM outsold SAIC Volkswagen for the second time this year. According to the joint venture, the wholesale volume of Buick vigorously grew 27% year on year to 99,057 units, a record-breaking monthly number for the past two years.
SAIC-Volkswagen dropped to the third place last month with a sales volume of 155,000 units. The Sino-German joint venture has not nabbed any year-on-year growth so far this year.
SAIC Motor PV, the subsidiary dedicated to selling vehicles under SAIC's self-owned brands—Roewe and MG, scored a 16.29% sales increase in October with 70,381 vehicles sold in total.
FAW nabs year-on-year growth in both Oct. sales and outputs
FAW Group sold 354,504 new vehicles in October, a year-on-year growth of 6.8%, and saw its production volume jump 12% to 341,323 units.
As of October, the state-owned automaker said its year-to-date sales rose 7.8% to 3,011,248 units, and outputs totaled 2,979,465 units, an increase of 9.7% from a year earlier.
The premium brand Hongqi scored a year-over-year hike of 93.6% with 23,018 new vehicles sold last month.
For the first ten months of 2020, Hongqi sold around 153,109 vehicles in total, posting a robust year-on-year surge of 103% and achieving 76.5% of the 200,000-unit sales goal it sets for 2020. In all likelihood, the premium brand will fulfill the target as long as it keeps the stable upward movement.
As for joint venture, FAW-Volkswagen saw its Oct. sales climb 5.6% year over year to 220,574 units. The joint venture inked an MoU with Volkswagen AG at the 3rd CIIE (China International Import Expo) to import CKD and Audi-branded complete vehicles from the German auto giant.
Additionally, two Sino-Japanese joint venture, FAW-Toyota and FAW-Mazda, sold 65,057 (+6.6% YoY) and 5,007 vehicles in October respectively.
Dongfeng Motor Group's sales rise for seven consecutive months
Dongfeng Motor Group Company Limited (Dongfeng) saw its auto sales in Oct. climb 9.86% year on year, the seven-month-in-a-row increase it achieved this year.
Thanks to the consecutive rises, the Wuhan-headquartered automaker witnessed the decrease in its year-to-date sales contracted to 5.78%, versus the 7.74% in the Q1-Q3 volume.
It is apparent that the CV unit played a more important role in pushing the overall sales up. The automaker sold a total of 48,551 CVs in Oct., soaring 30.68% over a year ago. Meanwhile, PV sales grew 6.43% year on year to 239,878 units thanks to the 3.47% and 11.14% increase gained by the car and SUV segments.
Dongfeng Motor Company Limited posted a 9.46% year-on-year growth which largely resulted from the sales increase attained by Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Automobile Co.,Ltd and Zhengzhou Nissan.
Dongfeng Honda's Oct. sales jumped 20.29% from a year ago. The joint venture is going to put the M-NV small-sized SUV onto the market at the forthcoming Auto Guangzhou 2020.
DPCA's Oct. sales were more than halved over the previous year. The Sino-French joint venture plans to roll out 14 new models that meet Chinese consumers' demands in the following five years, according to the “YUAN +” strategic plan the company launched on October 24.
GAC Group sales jump 21.53% YoY in October
GAC Group sold 209,876 vehicles in October, representing a year-on-year increase of 21.53%. The group's Jan.-Oct. sales reached 1,617,043 units, down by 3.79% year on year, 2.9 percentage points less than the decline of the first nine months. As of October, the group has achieved 76.27% of its annual sales target.
GAC Honda sold 87,626 vehicles in October, up by 31.9% compared with a year ago and its YTD sales in the first ten months this year dropped by 1.85% to 638,191 units. Monthly sales of several models from the joint venture have exceeded 10,000 units, including the Accord, and the fourth-generation Fit.
GAC Toyota's monthly sales jumped 20% to 72,000 units with sales of the TNGA Family leaping 35% year on year to 54,359 units. The joint venture sold a total of 615,449 vehicles between Jan. and Oct., up by 10.65% year on year.
In October, GAC Motor sold 37,801 vehicles with a year-on-year increase of 28.2%. Sales of GAC Trumpchi have increased for four consecutive months, with 30,629 vehicles sold last month. The monthly sales of the GS3 POWER, which hit market on the first day of October, reached nearly 5,000 units.
Changan Auto records YoY sales growth for 7th month in a row
Changan Auto gained a 29.65% year-on-year growth by selling 212,640 vehicles last month. As of Oct., the automaker had achieved increase for the seventh month in a row.
In the Jan.-Oct. period, Changan Auto sold a total of 1,583,521 vehicles, posting a double-digit growth of 14.1%.
Last month, Chongqing Changan was honored the fast-growing subsidiary with a year-on-year hike of 67.54%. Hefei Changan posted a substantial slowdown with its year-on-year growth shrinking to 22.58% from 51.24% in September.
Regarding joint ventures, both Changan Ford and Changan Mazda nabbed double-digit growth in Oct. sales. Notably, the growth in Changan Mazda's year-to-date sales turned positive for the first time so far this year.
Changan Auto said the sales of its self-owned brands leapt 30.5% from a year ago to 161,465 units, of which 112,153 units were PVs, representing an impressive surge of 47.1%.
With regard to specific models, the sales of the Changan CS75 and CS55 SUVs reached 30,963 units and 13,440 units in October. The Eado sedan series had a sales volume of 20,405 units. Moreover, the sales of the UNI-T, the first mass-produced model of Changan's UNI sequence, stood at 11,227 units last month, exceeding 10,000 units for four straight months.
Geely Auto nabs 8% year-on-year growth in Oct. sales
Geely Auto and its subsidiaries sold a total of 140,026 new vehicles in October, an increase of roughly 8% from the year-ago period and up around 11% from the previous month.
In the Jan.-Oct. period, the group (Geely Auto and its subsidiaries) sold 1,015,498 vehicles in total, posting a 7% decline over the prior-year period and fulfilling 77% of its revised annual sales target of 1.32 million units.
Among the vehicles sold last month, 5,826 units were new energy and electrified vehicles (NEEVs), including the Geometry As, the Emgrand EV and the Emgrand GSes, representing a month-on-month decrease of 4.4%.
The sales of sedans and SUVs amounted to 46,040 units and 90,430 units respectively last month. The Emgrand sedan had a sales volume of 21,179 units, making its year-to-date volume total 179,877 units. The monthly sales of the Boyue and Boyue PRO SUVs aggregated 25,062 units.
With 21,868 units sold, Lynk & Co brand recorded a 56% year on year hike in October. Hitting the market in early May, the Lynk & Co 05 had posted monthly sales of over 4,000 units for four consecutive months.
Great Wall Motor sees Oct. sales leap 17.86% from a year earlier
Great Wall Motor (GWM), the Chinese biggest SUV and pickup manufacturer, said its sales hit a new high of 135,559 units in October, rising 18% year on year and 15% month on month respectively.
For the year-to-date performance, the automaker sold 816,249 new vehicles in total, a year-over-year decrease of 2.73%, which were 3.27 percentage points less than the decrease in the Q1-Q3 sales.
As GWM's biggest sales force, Haval sold 97,950 vehicles (+13.32% YoY) in October and 542,931 units (-10.66% YoY) in the Jan.-Oct. period. The Haval H6, which has been long honored the hottest-selling SUV model in China, had a sales volume of 52,734 units, a 30% growth compared to both the year ago and the month ago. Notably, the sales of the third-generation Haval H6 reached 20,775 units.
WEY sold 9,076 vehicles last month. The SUV brand expects a future growing sales volume with the launch of such new products as the Tank 300.
ORA boasted a remarkable year-on-year hike of 352% by selling 8,011 vehicles in October. Of those, the sales of the Heimao (previously named ORA R1) soared 287% over a year ago to 6,269 units.
Chery Holding's new vehicle sales leap 25% YoY in Oct.
China's Chery Holding sold roughly 88,000 new vehicles in Oct., boasting a year-on-year leap of 25% and up by 28.1% over a month ago, according to the company's announcement.
There were 74,903 vehicles sold in domestic market, representing a year-over-year growth of 20.4%. Export volume surged 60.3% to 13,001 units.
Chery Automobile's sales reached 55,000 units last month, jumping 29% from the previous month and 35.2% from the previous year. As of Oct., the automaker had achieved year-on-year and month-on-month increase for five consecutive months.
The sales of Jetour family amounted to 16,000 units last month, rising 11.9% compared to the prior-year period. At the end of October, the brand saw this year's third new model, the Jetour X70 PLUS, go on sale.
Regarding joint ventures, Chery Jaguar Land Rover and Cowin Auto sold 6,000 and 4,000 vehicles last month, representing 48% and 86% year-over-year hike respectively.
For the first ten months, Chery Holding's export volume climbed 9% over a year earlier to 86,680 units, of which 81,758 units were passenger vehicles, up by 39% from a year ago.
BYD sees NEV sales shoot up 84.75% YoY in Oct.
BYD's new vehicle sales reached 47,732 units in Oct., jumping 16.05% year on year and rising 13.15% month on month. For the first ten months, the automaker sold a total of 316,707 vehicles, posting a 15.98% decrease over a year ago, 3.92 percentage points lower than the drop in Jan.-Sept. sales.
The sales of oil-fueled vehicles slid 14.17% from a year earlier to 24,515 units last month, while grew 9.92% compared to September. Fuel-burning vehicle business was sustaining consecutive year-over-year growth from March to August, while started facing decrease in September.
BYD saw its new energy vehicle (NEV) sales surge 84.75% from the year-ago period to 23,217 units, of which 14,919 units were all-electric passenger vehicles, a remarkable year-on-year hike of 96.61%.
The advent of the BYD Han flagship sedan also served a driving force to the overall NEV sales. According to BYD, the sales of the Han (including BEV and PHEV versions) reached 7,545 units in October, and totaled 18,363 units since it hit the market in July.
JAC Motors sustains growth in year-to-date sales
JAC Motor's new vehicle sales leapt 31.45% from a year ago to 43,007 units last month. Year-to-date sales amounted to 375,592 units, still representing a rising movement.
CV sales in Oct. shot up 33.81% year on year to 28,280 units, including 21,119 light-duty trucks (+28.53%), 1,432 medium-duty trucks (+106.94%) and 4,180 heavy-duty trucks (+56.2%).
JAC Motors said its PV sales leapt 27.13% over a year earlier to 14,727 units in Oct., showing growth for the fourth month in a row. Both SUV and car units garnered year-over-year increase of over 45%.
According to the company's financial results, JAC Motors' revenue reached 40.06 billion yuan ($6.08 billion) for the first three quarters, up by 7.73% compared to the year-ago period. During the same period, the net profit attributable to shareholders plunged 65.18% to 42.354 million yuan ($6.429 million) as the profitability of the company's main businesses whittled down due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
