Haima Automobile sees sales slump, pulled by uncompetitive SUV

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai August 7) - Haima Automobile Group reported slump both in production volume and sales volume in local Chinese market in July, as well as accumulative figures of production and sales from January to July. The major reason is that the company’s SUV section maintains little competitiveness in the fast growing market as its SUV sales reported year-on-year slump for several consecutive months.

The sales figure of Haima Automobile in July is 6,352 units, a year-on-year decrease of 50.36%; and production volume sliding 44.37% to 7,264 units from a year earlier. The company’s accumulative sales in the first seven months decreased 11.24% to 89,042 units compared with a year earlier; and its accumulative production volume decreased to 88,870 units with a year-on-year decrease of 14.78%.

In SUV section, Haima Auto reported production of 3,155 units in July, a year-on-year 48.25% slump; its sales volume in July sank 48.25% from a year earlier to 2,684 units, a 40% month-on-month sharp decline. In fact, the downward trend in SUV has shown up since April this year. The company’s SUV sales dropped 29% from a month earlier to 5,082 units.

Recently, the SUV gained popularity amid the overall downturn in Chinese auto industry. Therefore, many automakers have shifted their focus in SUV section via endlessly launching new SUV models. However, Haima Auto stroke into its two SUV models Haima S5 and newly launched Haima S7 with no more new SUV models fighting in the market.

Compared with Haval H6, H8 from Great Wall and Changan Auto’s CS75, CS35 and CX20 SUV, the mentioned two SUV models of Haima Auto hold little strengths as for price-quality ration and the varieties of choice.

The company faces an array of challenges to improve its sales performance for the non-mainstream automaker is uncompetitive both in brand influence and strength compared with other mainstream Chinese automakers.