Summary: Top ten Chinese passenger automobile manufacturers in February

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai) - According to China Passenger Car Association statistics compiled by Gasgoo.com (Chinese), the top ten Chinese passenger automobile manufacturing enterprises sold a total of 1.21 million new automobiles in February, accounting for 92.2% of all vehicles sold in the country over the course of the month. The top six of them, SAIC Group, Dongfeng Motor, Changan Automobile, FAW Group, BAIC Group and GAC Group, accounted for 80.3% of all new car sales in February.

SAIC Group was the top seller of passenger automobiles in February, followed by Dongfeng, Changan, FAW, BAIC, GAC, Great Wall, Geely, Brilliance and JAC. Chery and BYD, which were among the top ten in February 2015, were forced out of the rankings this year by Brilliance and JAC, while Changan overtook FAW for the number three spot. JAC’s year-on-year sales growth of over 36% was noticeably higher than its competitors.

SAIC still continued to lead its rivals by a considerable margin, with new car sales totaling 356,934 units in February. Despite the impressive volume, the manufacturer’s sales growth was actually negative 2.2% year-on-year. This decline was mainly due to the sales performances of SAIC’s two biggest joint ventures, Shanghai VW and Shanghai GM, whose sales fell 14.8% and 10.1%, respectively. What kept that sales drop from being too drastic was the commendable performance of SAIC-GM-Wuling, which, thanks mainly to the hot-selling Baojun 560, managed to achieve year-on-year sales growth of 28.2%, overtaking Shanghai GM in total sales.

Benefiting from the continuing popularity of SUVs in the country, Dongfeng finished number two on the charts with total new car sales of 186,428 units, up 3.2% year-on-year.

As mentioned above, Changan overtook FAW to capture the number three spot with 173,535 new car sales made in February. Sales of its flagship models all increased in February. By comparison, FAW’s new car sales fell 3.6%, totaling 155,589 units. Its major JV, FAW-VW, suffered negative sales growth of 4.1% in February.

BAIC was the last of the five manufacturers which managed to pass the 100,000 sales mark in February. BAIC sold a total of 117,951 new cars this month, down 2.9% from February of 2015. This drop in sales was mainly due to Beijing Hyundai’s less than stellar performance, with the JV’s sales falling a full 28.5% year-on-year.

Behind BAIC on the charts was GAC, which, despite achieving sales growth of 25.5% year-on-year, only managed to achieve total new car sales of 117,951.

SUV manufacturer Great Wall posted new car sales of 52,624 in February, up positive sales growth of 17.4%. Great Wall’s SUV sales alone managed to grow over 20% year-on-year.

Geely sold a total of 36,964 new cars in February, down 2.8% year-on-year.

Brilliance and JAC posted sales growth rates in the double digits. Brilliance and JAC sold 36,265 vehicles and 31,526 vehicles, representing year-on-year sales growth rates of 22.8% and 36.1%, respectively.