Summary: Sales performances of Sino-foreign joint ventures in July

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai) - July marked the first time monthly sales growth of domestic own brand manufacturers in the passenger automobile market exceeded that of rival Sino-foreign joint ventures. According to statistics collected by Gasgoo.com (Chinese), total sales of own brand passenger automobiles grew 14.9 percent during the month, while sales of domestically-manufactured joint venture automobiles grew only 8.8 percent. Average industry growth in the market was 10.5 percent for the month.

VW remained the foreign manufacturer with the most Chinese-made passenger automobiles sold in July, followed by GM, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Honda, Kia, PSA, Ford, Mazda, BMW, Suzuki, Daimler, Lotus, Mitsubishi and Volvo. Compared with last year, Ford, Mazda, BMW and Lotus all rose up the rankings, while Suzuki and Mitsubishi both fell.

Lotus boasted the highest year-on-year growth rates in July, with its sales increasing a full 57.8 percent. However, its total sales volume was still only in the couple of thousands. Ford's sales grew 43.7 percent, finishing at 26,300 units in July. Key reasons behind the manufacturer's rapid sales increase were rising interest in its Mondeo midsize and the market release of the New Focus.

BMW's sales grew 43.4 percent over the twelve month period, faster than sales from rival luxury manufacturers Audi and Mercedes-Benz. The BMW X1 and 5 Series were cited as key contributors to the manufacturer's strong performance. By comparison, sales of Chinese Audis and Benzes increased 12.1 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively.

VW and Hyundai were also able to maintain double-digit year-on-year growth rates. VW's 23.9 percent increase owed a lot to the Sagitar, Magotan and Lavida, while Hyundai's 23.0 percent was due mainly to the performances of the new generation Sonata, Verna, Elantra and Tucson.

GM, Kia, PSA, Daimler and Honda saw only slight growth last month. Among them, Honda was the only Japanese manufacturer to report positive sales growth. Mazda, Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Suzuki all experienced a fall in sales. The decline in sales among Japanese manufacturers has been attributed to the speed from which they recovered from last year's earthquake. Volvo also experienced a steep decline in sales.

The aforementioned 16 joint ventures sold a total of 5.19 million Chinese-made passenger automobiles from January to July. The figure represents year-on-year growth of 12.5 percent, higher than the industry average of 8.4 percent.

Lotus and BMW reported year-on-year growth of over 50 percent for the seven month period. Toyota, VW, Kia, Nissan and Honda also managed to maintain double digit growth rates. On the other end of the spectrum, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Mazda and Volvo all experienced negative sales growth.