SAIC Motor achieves slight growth in April retail sales

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Benefitting from the resilient demand, SAIC Motor, China's largest automaker saw its auto wholesale volume surge to 417,560 units in April from 231,455 units in March.

The year-on-year decrease in April sales stood at 8.6%, versus 58.56% and 86.95% drop in Mar. and Feb. volumes.

During the same period, the wholesales for exports and overseas markets totaled 26,358 units, edging up 0.7% over a year earlier.

The growth in retail sales was turned to be positive. The company said its April deliveries edged up 1.3% from the year-ago period to 413,300 units.

(All-new Passat, photo source: SAIC Volkswagen)

Among subsidiaries, SAIC Volkswagen regained the championship in terms of April wholesales, but still recorded a double-digit downturn.

SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGWM) dropped to the runner-up place, while achieved a 13.53% growth compared to the same period a year ago and was outsold by SAIC Volkswagen by only 100 units. 

The generous cash handouts largely contributed to the blooming sales. SGWM announced in early April it had set aside RMB1 billion to subsidize consumers' new-car purchase in response to China's encouragement to boost automobile shopping. Under the new project, dealers of Baojun brand would offer buyers across China subsidy of up to RMB10,000 per car.

(Buick Envision, photo source: SAIC-GM)

SAIC-GM's wholesales in April slid 12.35% from the previous year to 110,002 units. As for retail performance, the joint venture handed over a total of 111,155 new vehicles (including the exported), a year-on-year increase of 13.6%. The deliveries of Buick, Cadillac and Chevrolet amounted to 68,827 units (+29.5%), 16,273 units (+14.4%) and 26,055 units respectively.

For the first four months, SAIC Motor was still trapped by a year-over-year sales plunge of over 40%. Nonetheless, its year-to-date export volume and overseas sales climbed 4% to 93,000 units.