SAIC Motor sold 22.2% more vehicles in August than a year earlier, its slowest gain so far this year, though up on July’s total unit sales.
Go deeper with GlobalData
SAIC, which runs vehicle manufacturing ventures with General Motors and Volkswagen, sold 286,814 vehicles in the month, it said in a statement. In July its vehicle sales had risen 24.6% year-on-year to 278,947 vehicles.
Analysts attributed the slight slowdown to explosive demand for its Wuling brand mini vehicles in 2009.
“Wuling sales were so strong last year, it pushed up the comparative base too high,” Zhang Xin, an analyst with Guotai Junan Securities, told Reuters. “But its two car ventures still see some good growth, even though not as fast as in 2009.”
Some other makers also saw slower or even negative growth in August. Honda Motor’s China car sales rose just 5.9%, while Warren Buffett-backed BYD saw its monthly sales falling 19% from the year-ago level.
Data provided by government-affiliated China Automotive Technology & Research Center (CATRC). Monthly data provided by most automakers gives the number of vehicles they shipped to dealers, not cars actually sold.
Despite a recovery of demand in August, automakers had slowed shipments of stock to dealers, who were already complaining about rising inventory levels, analysts said.
Some BYD dealers had even pulled out of the network after their inventory piled up, local media said.
Shanghai GM, its car venture with the Detroit automaker, sold 81,067 cars in August, up 28% on a year ago, with sales at its venture with Volkswagen rising 32%, company data showed.
But sales at SAIC-GM-Wuling, a three-way tie-up between SAIC, GM and Liuzhou Wuling, climbed just 6.9%.
