Summary: Sales of compact cars in China in November

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai) - With 2012 coming to an end, competition in the Chinese automobile industry is becoming ever fiercer as manufacturers rush to complete their sales targets for the year. Among the various segments, competition in the compact car market is especially fierce. The following is a brief summary of Chinese compact car sales in November and from January to November.

There were a total of 19 compact models whose November sales exceeded 10,000 units. Among them, seven models had sales of over 20,000 units, led by the Ford Focus (38,400 sales) and Volkswagen Lavida (31,700). The Focus was not only the highest performing model in its segment, but also November's best-selling passenger automobile. Meanwhile, the Lavida's November sales result represented a new record for the VW compact.

The two models were followed by the Kaiyue version of the Buick Excelle, VW Sagitar, Chevrolet Cruze, the Yuedong version of the Hyundai Elantra and the VW New Bora. Further down the charts, Dongfeng Nissan's New Sylphy was the only Japanese compact which managed sales of over 10,000 units over the month. Sales of other Japanese models, including the Toyota Crown and Corolla, as well as the Nissan New Sunny, all fell below the 10,000 unit mark. By comparison, four own brand models, the Geely Emgrand EC7, Great Wall C30, BYD L3 and BYD F3 Surui, all managed to bring in over 10,000 new orders in November.

Looking at individual year-on-year growth rates for compacts, sales of two models, the Ford Focus and VW Sagitar, doubled from November 2011 to November of this year. Meanwhile, growth rates for the Geely's EC7, VW's Santana, Hyundai's Yuedong Elantra and BYD L3 were all above 50 percent. Only a few models, such as the Great Wall C30 and the Kaiyue version of the Buick Excelle, reported negative year-on-year growth.

Going over cumulative sales for the first eleven months of the year, the Kaiyue Excelle led the charts with a total of 261,200 sales. It was followed by the Ford Focus (259,500 sales), VW Lavida (226,700), VW Jetta (218,500), Chevrolet Cruze (216,600), VW New Bora (208,300) and Yuedong version of the Hyundai Elantra (200,800).

Competition between VW's models and the Chevrolet Cruze has been especially fierce over the first eleven months of the year. Looking at year-on-year growth rates, sales of the Cruze grew 6.3 percent, while that of its closest competitor, the Jetta, increased 8.4 percent over the same period of time.

From January to November, three compacts, the VW Sagitar, Geely EC7 and Ford Focus, all managed year-on-year growth rates of over 50 percent. Sales growth rates for the Nissan Tiida (Qida), Buick Excelle (Yinglang) and VW Golf A6 were also noteworthy.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Toyota Corolla, Nissan New Sunny, Great Wall C30, BYD F3 and Citroën C4 all saw their sales decrease over the eleven month period, with the F3's sales falling a full 31.8 percent.