New vehicle sales in China grew by just over 4% to 1.71m units in August, compared with 1.65m units in the same month of last year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
Cumulative sales in the first eight months of 2014 were 7.7% higher at 15.02m units, compared with 13.95 units in the same period last year.
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Sales of domestic brands increased by 5.6% to 545,100 units last month, although year-to-date their combined share of the domestic vehicle market fell by one percentage point to 37.1%. The domestic brands’ performance in the passenger car segment has been particularly weak this year, with their share of the segment falling by 5.6 percentage points to 19.5% year-to-date.
General Motors is the largest foreign automaker so far to report sales results for August, with volumes rising 14% year-on-year to 280,178 units. This includes sales of wholly-owned and joint venture brands including Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, SAIC-GM-Wuling and Baojun.
Shanghai GM, which produces Chevrolet, Buick, and Cadillac brand cars, reported a 6% sales increase to 129,547 units in August while SAIC-GM-Wuling’s sales increased by over 24% to 148,555 units.
The Volkswagen group, through its FAW-VW and Shanghai VW joint ventures, is the largest automaker in China although it is one of the slowest to release sales results.
Nissan said its sales in China fell by less than 1% to 85,500 units last month, although year-to-date volumes were 9.4% higher at 785,400 units.
Toyota reported an almost 9% year-on-year rise in sales to 78,500 units at its two joint ventures in China, with volumes rising by 9.7% to 619,200 units in the first eight months of the year.
Ford’s sales increased by 9% to 77,506 units in August and by 30% to 717,537 units year-to-date while Honda’s two joint ventures reported a 5.5% fall in August sales to 52,513 units, although over the eight-month period sales were up by 5.2% at 445,472 units.
