GAC Group gains sales growth in April thanks to Sino-Japanese JVs’ impetus

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- GAC Group saw its auto sales in April rise 6.1% year on year to 166,273 units, which made its year-to-date sales aggregate 472,370 units, still showing a slump of 27.49% due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The increase in PV sales is accountable for the total sales growth. Last month, the Guangzhou-based automaker sold 166,117 PVs, 6.21% more than the year-ago level. The CV sales tumbled 49.84% to only 156 units, while it failed to hold the overall growth back because of its small volume.

Two Sino-Japanese joint ventures—GAC Honda and GAC Toyota—took up over 80% of the group's April sales. Notably, GAC Toyota attained an exceptional growth of 46.9% with 63,607 vehicles sold. GAC Honda also had a sales volume more than that of the prior-year period.

(Highlander, photo source: GAC Toyota)

As the main sales drivers of GAC Group, GAC Honda and GAC Toyota ran at 120% and 140% production capacity in 2019, according to the group's annual result. Thus, both of them are expanding capacities to support the climbing sales. According to local media outlets, GAC Toyota plans to build its fifth production line with an annual capacity of 200,000 vehicles to be added. GAC Honda has completed in Feb. the capacity expansion project for one of the plants at Zengcheng District with the vehicle capacity doubled to 240,000 units per year.

Nevertheless, other joint ventures were all hit by dwindling demands. GAC Mitsubishi witnessed its April sales halved over the previous year.

GAC Motor, GAC Group's self-owned PV subsidiary, got a 17% drop in April sales and a 26.2% slump in year-to-date sales. Its registered capital has been increased to RMB15.517 billion from RMB12.718 billion on April 10, according to the business data search platform Tianyancha.

Honda Automobile (China) is no longer included into GAC's sales report as it was fully absorbed by GAC Honda on April 1.