Imported cars sales drop 21.2% with VW, Audi down 40%

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai July 13) - Chinese imported vehicles experienced sales downturn with expected sales sluggish in the second half of the year. The accumulative custom imported vehicles in the first five months in China declined 22.3% from a year earlier to 438,000 units. And the accumulative dealer delivery dropped 21.2% to 379,800 units on a year-on-year basis.

Except Mercedes-Benz and Porsche gaining slightly in sales, other brands in the top ten imported car brands list were all encountered with sales slid for example, Land Rover, VW, Audi and Renault declined by more than 40% in sales in the first half of the year compared with the same period of last year.

With the market shrinking and the deepening of the market investigation, the competition becomes increasingly fiercer. BMW and Mercedes-Benz maintained bestsellers in the first half of the year. Land Rover had a ranking slid, while Jeep increased in the list.

From the beginning of the year, numerous imported car brands have gone through a series of adjustment like official price reduction to release the increasingly high inventory accumulated from the latter half of the year earlier. And currently, they are experiencing the deep adjustment.

In May, the average inventory days for imported car dealers reached 143, far more than the ordinary 24 to 36 days.

To revive the sales, these imported car brands have a record high discount of approaching 12% of the selling price. But it has little effect. It is suggest that they should lower the sales target and give dealers part rights to set the selling price.