SAIC Motor posts 8.4% YoY sales drop in October

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- SAIC Motor reported a year-on-year (YoY) drop of 8.4% in sales with 601,877 vehicles delivered in October. For the first ten months, the automaker delivered 5,748,433 vehicles in total, a YoY increase of 4.9%.

The top 3 subsidiaries by October sales were SAIC-GM, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM-Wuling. All three companies failed to gain better sales performance than that of a year ago. In addition, SAIC Maxus, Naveco and Sunwin Bus saw their sales in October fall 10.6%, 15.2% and 51.7% over the year ago period.

Thanks to the popularity of the Roewe and the MG, SAIC Motor PV's monthly sales still kept rising with 60,003 units handed over in October. From January to October, the PV maker's year-to-date (YTD) sales surged 37.8% from a year earlier to 569,132 units, boosted by nearly 10 new models so far released in 2018.

SAIC-GM's deliveries shrank 9% over a year earlier in October, while climbed 3.5% YoY for the first ten months. Driven by Cadillac, Chevrolet and Buick brands, SAIC-GM surpassed SAIC Volkswagen and became the sales champion among all subsidiaries.

SAIC Volkswagen saw its sales decline 7.1% over the year-ago period to 180,000 units. However, it still achieved a YoY increase of 1.8% in terms of year-to-date (YTD) sales. Relevant data showed that the Lavida sedan became one of the most popular sedan models among consumers with its Jan-June sales exceeding 240,000 units. Besides, the Tiguan, with 147,941 units sold from January to June, took the sales championship in the joint venture-made SUV sector. The all-new SUV Tharu, hitting the market on October 31, is expected to further boost the sales in the rest time of the year.

Affected by the overall economic climate and the internal competition, SAIC-GM-Wuling got slower pace in delivering cars. Last month, it sold 161,833 vehicles with a YoY drop of 15.8%. As to the performance for the first ten months, the company came across a YoY decline of 1.0%.