Summary: Foreign automobile manufacturers' performance in China in October

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai) - Statistics collected by Gasgoo.com (Chinese) showed that 721,600 major foreign brand passenger automobiles have been sold in China in October. The number is only 0.6 percent higher than last October's figure. The major factor behind the low growth rate is the declining performance of Japanese automobile manufacturers, whose sales continued to fall in October.

Despite managing to sustain sales growth rates in the double digits in October, German, US, Korean and French manufacturers were unable to negate the sales decline Japanese manufacturers suffered over the month.

Japanese manufacturers sold a total of 99,989 vehicles in China in October, nearly 60 percent less than they sold a year ago. October is also the first time in nearly three years that Japanese automobile enterprises' combined monthly sales in the country fell under 100,000 units. Their combined market share in the country is now just at nine percent, a full 14 percent less than last October.

All six major Japanese manufacturers saw their Chinese sales decrease from October 2011 to October of this year. Among them, Toyota's decline was the most severe, followed immediately by Mitsubishi and Nissan.

By comparison, major European, US and Korean manufacturers all managed to maintain strong positive sales growth in October, with their respective market shares increasing. German manufacturers performed the strongest overall, with their combined sales in October growing over 34 percent. French, US and Korean manufacturers also managed to maintain combined growth rates of over 20 percent over the month.

Among individual manufacturers, Daimler, BMW and Ford all reported year-on-year growth of over 60 percent, with their sales volumes totaling 12,300 units, 13,600 units and 43,600 units respectively. Meanwhile, the two top selling foreign manufacturers in China, VW and GM, saw their sales grow 31.8 percent and 11.7 percent, respectively.

Japanese manufacturers managed to sustain positive year-on-year growth from January to October. Their cumulative sales results for the ten month period totaled 2.12 million vehicles, 4.3 percent less than a year ago. By comparison, the average sales growth rate for foreign brands for the above time period was 9.1 percent. Only one of the six major Japanese manufacturers, Toyota, reported positive year-on-year growth.

By comparison, other major foreign manufacturers all performed strongly. German manufacturers' performance was especially strong, with BMW reporting positive growth of 52.5 percent over the ten month time frame.