Summary: Changan Ford Mazda's sales performance from 2009 to 2012

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai) - Last month, the National Development Reform and Commission approved Changan Ford Mazda's request to split into to two separate joint venture companies. The following is a brief summary of Changan Ford Mazda's passenger automobile sales performance over the last few years.

2010 marked the only time in the last three years that Changan Ford Mazda made the charts of top ten performing enterprises in the Chinese automobile market. That year, the JV sold a total of 411,500 passenger automobiles, placing number ten in the rankings. Both the year before and after, the JV placed eleven in the annual rankings.

Looking at the JV's individual brands, Ford vehicles have constituted around three quarters of its total sales over the past years. Despite this, sales volume of Changan-sold Fords was less than those of Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Yueda Kia vehicles in 2009.

Meanwhile, Mazda vehicles have constituted around twenty percent of Changan Ford Mazda's total sales volume. From 2009 to 2011, the ratio of Mazda sales has constantly decreased, while those of Fords continued to grow. Last year, Fords made up 76.6 percent of the JV's total sales volume, while Mazda sales accounted for only 19.9 percent. Although Mazda sales have slightly recovered in the first five months of this year, they still lag behind 2009 levels.

Despite the fact that they contributed the most to Changan Ford Mazda's performance, sales growth rates of the JV's Ford vehicles have been less than ideal. Since 2009, sales growth for Changan Ford vehicles has lagged behind the market average. Furthermore, the disparity between Changan Ford sales and the market average has continued to grow over the years, increasing from a mere 0.4 percent and 2.8 percent in 2009 and 2010 to a full 3.3 percent last year.

In the first five months of this year, Changan Ford's sales growth reached a new low of negative 2.1 percent. The JV sold only 135,400 passenger automobiles during the five month period, though it began making a recovery in April and May, thanks in part to the opening of its second production site in its home city of Chongqing and the market debut of the new Ford Focus.

Another trend worth mentioning is the difference in sales between Mazda's sold by Changan Ford Mazda and those sold by FAW Mazda.

In 2009, sales of Changan Mazdas were 28,100 units less than those of FAW Mazdas. That gap increased to over 40,000 over the next two years. However, when looking at the first five months of this year, the gap decreased to only 4,600 units. A large part of this was due to the popular Mazda3 Xingcheng, whose sales over the five month period totaled 37,700 units. By comparison, sales of other Mazda models, including the Mazda3 and Mazda2, continued to slip.