China announces '08 best-selling sedan models

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers recently announced the top 10 sedan models in regards to sales volume from January to November this year. They are, in order, Jetta, Santana, Excelle, Corolla, Accord, Camry, F3, QQ, Xiali and Elantra.

As of November, the sales volume of sedans had totaled over 4.6 million nationwide, of which, 1.4269 million were of the above 10 models, accounting for 31% of total sedan sales. Pillars in the automobile industry, such as Jetta and Santana, are still leading the Chinese sedan market. F3 and QQ, both domestic models, respectively rank 7th and 8th, with sales volumes of 119,703 and 117,452.

Meanwhile, the ranking for January to November sales of the most popular passenger vehicle enterprises has also been revealed. The top three are FAW-Volkswagen, Shanghai Volkswagen and Shanghai GM.

FAW-Volkswagen and Shanghai Volkswagen, whose respective sales volumes were 467,212 and 431,771, thoroughly reflect the Volkswagen Group's dominant position in China's narrow passenger vehicle market. Both Chery Automobile and Geely Automobile, the principal movers in the domestic brands, edged their way into the top 10. With a good sales performance of 259,651 vehicles, Chery Automobile ranked 6th, right above Guangzhou Toyota.

In November 2008, the production of passenger vehicles in the domestic market totaled 535,548, a decrease of 11.6% compared with the total output of 605,891 vehicles in the same period last year. Of which, other vehicle types, mainly composed of minibuses, dropped 24.7% year-on-year and 7.7% month-on-month and became the group with the largest negative production growth rate on a year-on-year and month-on-month basis.

On the whole, most types of passenger vehicles in the domestic market saw negative growth in November. Although MPV vehicles had a production growth rate of 23% month-on-month, sales volume for the vehicle type dropped in November, declining 29%, which is far more than 10%.

The sales volume of passenger vehicles was 492,710 in China in November, down 3.8% month-on-month and 7.6% year-on-year, of which, sedan models with a sales volume of 361,710 had negative growth rates of 7.9% and 8.1%, respectively, compared with last month and the same period last year. This makes it the only passenger vehicle type in the domestic market with negative sales growth on both year-on-year and month-on-month bases in November 2008.

According to Cui Dongshu, Deputy Secretary-General of the National Passenger Car Information Exchange Association, though domestic passenger vehicles have had a bad sales performance period recently, and witnessed an all-round negative growth rate in the third quarter, due to excellent sales in the first half of this year, the overall sales volume of 2008 has still risen, with an increase of 7.3% year-on-year.