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GM drives to biggest decline of 4.8% in China sales in 5 months
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General Motors Co yesterday reported its biggest drop in China sales in five months for August as global automakers struggle with a deepening economic slowdown and slumping equities in the world’s largest auto market.
Vehicle sales for GM and its joint venture partners fell 4.8 percent year on year last month, while Ford Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co also reported contracting sales for the month, highlighting the divide between winners and losers in the Chinese market.
The figures contrast sharply with last week’s major sales gains for Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co and Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler AG in China, demonstrating the importance of having fresh, in-demand products to entice buyers.
China’s economy is forecast to grow at its slowest pace in a quarter of a century this year. Mainland stock markets have tumbled roughly 40 percent since mid-June after a sharp run-up that began late last year.
Mercedes-Benz offers a fresher line-up than key luxury competitors in China, having revamped many of its models more recently than Audi AG and BMW AG and helping to lift its deliveries last month by 53.1 percent.
In the past year, Honda and Toyota have released hot-selling sport-utility vehicles, a segment that IHS Automotive predicts will grow by above 20 percent this year despite the market’s slowdown.
Automakers like GM are now trying to play catch-up. The US automaker launched a new SUV in July under its Baojun budget brand, but the marquee’s nearly three-fold sales growth year-to-date hasn’t been enough to lift the company’s relatively flat 2015 sales.
The sales numbers of GM, Ford and Nissan bode poorly for overall market sales in August. Industry sales for the January-July period were up only 0.4 percent on a year-on-year basis, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
CAAM is set to release August data on Thursday.
In July, CAAM slashed its sales growth forecast for 2015 by over half to 3 percent, saying the stock market crash depressed consumer sentiment.
Volkswagen AG is the top-selling passenger car maker in China with roughly 18 percent market share in 2014, followed by GM and Hyundai Motor Co.
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