Japanese passenger vehicle sales surge 22% in July in China due to biggest discounts

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai August 20) - Japanese automakers take on stronger growth momentum in China amid the increasingly high sales pressure for other manufactures in the Chinese depression auto market.

Japanese vehicle brands reported 22.4 percent passenger vehicle sales growth up to 256,600 units in July in China, while the overall passenger vehicle sales in China dropped 6.6 percent to 1,268,600 units in the same period, according to the statistics of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

The main reason for Japanese vehicles brands’ sales growth is their quick reaction to the signs of the overall downturn of Chinese market. Since the beginning of June this year, Japanese automakers started cutting production selling prices by a large margin to promote sales.

Though automakers from other countries play the same card of cutting official selling prices, they didn’t compete with Japanese rivals in determination and the price reduction level. There

The top ten models with the biggest discounts in June in the country consisted of eight vehicles from the Japanese manufactures, according to the statistics of China Passenger Car Association. In particular, the discount margin of Corolla from FAW Toyota reached 11 percent.

In the first seven months of the year, Honda reported sales in China of 534,000 units, a 32.8 percent increase compared with the same period of last year. Toyota sold 605,000 units in China in the same period, increasing 11.9 percent on a year-on-year basis. Nissan’s sales in July increased 2.8 percent to 672,000 units compared with the same period of last year. Mazda saw sales growth of 15.4 percent from a year earlier to 133,000 units in July in China.

In the meanwhile, the growth rate for China’s overall passenger vehicle is 3.4 percent, falling 8.6 percentage points compared with that of the same period of last year.