Chinese automakers to regain market share through the hot-selling SUV

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai July 10) - China’s domestic automakers achieved good sales in the compact SUV market amid the overall downturn in Chinese vehicle market, while they have been suffered in the sedan market compared with other foreign ventures. To regain their market share, these domestic automakers consider SUV their final way out.

The year-to-May accumulative passenger car sales for Chinese domestic automakers have increased 17.3% from a year earlier to 3.61 million units, accounting for 42.0% of the general passenger car sales volume in China in the first five months. And the red-hot sales of SUV in China have contributed largely for the sales growth of domestic car brands.

Four domestic SUVs topped in the best seller SUV list for the first five months of the year. for example, Great Wall’s Haval H6, the first bestseller reported 148,500 units sales for Jan-May, and forth and the sixth bestseller Changan CS35 and Changan CS75 sold 75,600 units and 71,200 units for the first five months in China.

However, the sales of Chinese domestic automakers slumped by 33.2 percent from last year’s 50,326 units to 33,610 units, with market share falling 5.9 percent to 24.8% on a year-on-year basis.

To cater the red-hot SUV market, domestic automakers plan to regain their market share by launching more than 31 new or altered SUV models in the latter half of the year, more than 80% of which are compact SUVs. For example, BAIC and BYD will respectively launch 6 and 4 compact SUV models in the fourth quarter of the year.

Meanwhile, another 8 new compact models are to be launched soon by joint-ventures including Audi, BMW and VW, Skoda and Renault. It is not easy for domestic automakers to revive through the compact SUV strategy.