SAIC Motor’s May sales fall 16.28% year on year, while grow 5.28% month on month

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- SAIC Motor's new car sales in May 2019 reached 480,926 units, declining 16.28% from a year ago, the auto group announced on June 11. However, compared with the sales volume for April, the company achieved a positive growth of 5.28%.

In May, SAIC Motor output 412,275 vehicles, a year-on-year slump of 29.77% and a month-on-month drop of 9.6%. Some industrial analysts said the monthly car outputs decrease amongst the month-on-month sales growth was perhaps caused by a clearance on accumulated inventories of dealers as a number of regions (including Shanghai, SAIC Motor's headquarters) are ready to implement the China Stage 6 Emission Standard from July 1. 

For the first five months, the Shanghai-based automaker saw its cumulative vehicle sales fall 16.7% to 2,470,757 units. During this period, a total of 2,392,624 vehicles have been produced, presenting a year-on-year drop of 21.57%.

Apart from SAIC GM Wuling Indonesia Co.,Ltd and Shanghai Sunwin Bus whose year-ago-period data were not available for calculation, the other subsidiaries were all faced with downturn in May sales. Nevertheless, SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling, the three subsidiaries that have been long occupied the first three places by monthly sales, all attained growth compared with their respective April sales. It may also have something to do with the transformation from China 5 to China 6 stage.

（Photo source: SAIC Motor's WeChat account)

Despite the headwinds currently experienced by the automaker in terms of sales volume, SAIC Motor announced earlier this month together with Shanghai Chemical Industry Park the launch of a hydrogen-refueling station, which claims to be the world’s biggest and highest-level one.

In January 2018, SAIC Motor and its subordinate companies formed the strategic partnership with Shanghai Chemical Industry Park to jointly boost the pilot operation of fuel cell vehicles and relevant infrastructure construction. The newly-built hydrogen-refueling station is part of fruits under the cooperation, carrying the mission to speed up SAIC Motor's commercialization progress in fuel cell cars and help Shanghai set up a world-class innovation base for fuel cell vehicle growth.

SAIC Motor is the earliest Chinese automaker that put fuel cell vehicles into commercial operation with its products covering both PVs and CVs, such as the Roewe 950, the MAXUS FCV80 light bus as well as Sunwin fuel cell buses. In the future, its fuel cell products will extend to cover light-duty, medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks.