According to the sales data released by the China Passenger Car Association, the wholesale sales of domestic passenger car manufacturers hit a record high in March, with a total of 2.189 million vehicles sold, a year-on-year increase of 10.1% and a month-on-month increase of 68%.
Judging from the performance of different car companies, year-on-year growth is also a general trend. There were 33 passenger car manufacturers that sold more than 10,000 in March, compared to 30 in the same period last year, and only 28 passenger car manufacturers sold more than 10,000 in February this year.
Among the top 10 car companies in March, 8 achieved year-on-year sales growth, and only FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC Passenger Vehicle saw a year-on-year decline in monthly sales, but the decline was not large, at about 5%. After experiencing sales fluctuations in the first two months of the year, BYD re-showed the strong side of the new "first brother in the car market" in March, and the monthly wholesale sales exceeded 300,000 units. Chery Automobile's wholesale sales figures are also quite good, with more than 170,000 vehicles sold in March, a year-on-year increase of 51.3%. Among the joint ventures, FAW-Volkswagen's monthly sales declined slightly (down 5.1% year-on-year), but the foundation remained solid, and absolute sales remained the leader among joint ventures, with sales of nearly 160,000 units in March.
BYD is back on top
After experiencing the crazy "impulse" in the last few months of 2023, in the first two months of 2024, BYD has obviously entered a period of market strategy adjustment, slowing down the pace of new cars leaving the factory, coupled with a series of main models have begun to prepare for the update of the Glory Edition models, resulting in the beginning of 2024, BYD's wholesale sales are at a recent market low, losing the monthly sales crown for two consecutive months.
However, we made a prediction in last month's monthly sales analysis manuscript of car companies, and the sales volume in January and February 2024 will definitely not be the norm for BYD's next market performance.
In March, BYD staged the return of the king with a monthly sales figure of more than 10 thousand units in the second place, and regained the monthly sales championship of car companies.
In March, BYD's various brand models delivered very competitive sales figures. The BYD Dynasty and Haiyang brands sold a total of 286,712 units, while the Denza brand also sold 10,279 units in March, while the Formula Leopard brand sold 3,550 units in March and the Yangwang brand also sold 1,090 units.
From the perspective of specific models, BYD's strong market position is even more revealed. In March, there were 17 models with wholesale sales of more than 20,000 units in the domestic passenger car market (only 5 models in February), of which 7 were BYD's products. The BYD Song series sold 78,490 units, the Qin family sold 40,569 units, and the Seagull family sold 34,830 units per month. After the launch of the Glory Edition model, the competitiveness of the Destroyer 05 has also skyrocketed, achieving a breakthrough of more than 20,000 monthly sales for the first time, with 28,964 cars sold in March, as a comparison, the best monthly sales of the model before March this year were just over 12,000 units. In addition, BYD Dolphin, BYD Yuan and BYD Han also sold more than 20,000 units in March.
In March, BYD once again set a new overseas monthly sales record, selling a total of 38,434 vehicles, and in the first three months of this year, BYD's cumulative sales in overseas markets have approached 100,000 units. In order to further promote the performance of overseas markets, after entering 2024, the construction of BYD's overseas production bases is also accelerating, BYD's Uzbekistan factory has been officially put into use in January this year, BYD's Thailand factory is expected to be put into use in the third quarter of this year, and BYD's Brazil factory is also accelerating its construction. According to the forecast of the Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute, BYD's passenger car exports are expected to reach 400,000 units in 2024.
Independent car companies are in full swing
In March, a total of 1.296 million new vehicles were sold by domestic independent car companies, up 23% year-on-year and 66% month-on-month.
Following BYD, Chery Automobile won the second place in car sales in March, with a total of 175,000 vehicles sold. Chery brand sales in March totaled 116,927 units, up 40.7% year-over-year, Jietu brand sales in March increased 82% to 35,503 units, and Xingtu brand sales in March increased 3% y/y to 6,653 units. In addition, the iCAR brand launched its first model, the iCAR 03, in March, and sold 5,487 units of the model in its first month of launch.
For Chery Automobile, the next performance in the new energy market will be an important highlight. In addition to the iCAR brand, from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, Chery Group has also successively launched the Star Era ES, Fengyun A8, off the assembly line Fengyun T9, Shanhai T2, Star Era ET and a series of hybrid and pure electric models, Xingtu Yaoguang C-DM has also been officially launched in March, Chery and Huawei jointly created the Zhijie brand, the first model Zhijie S7 will start large-scale delivery. For Chery Automobile, "revitalizing" the new energy business while consolidating the basic market of gasoline vehicles will be the top priority to further enhance its competitiveness in the future.
Changan and Geely both delivered monthly sales of more than 150,000 units in March, and both automakers had strong NEV businesses in March. Changan Automobile's NEV sales in March were 45,381 units, trailing only BYD and Tesla, and ranking third among NEV passenger car companies in China. Geely Automobile followed Changan Automobile in fourth place with 44,791 NEV sales.
At present, Changan Automobile has formed three major brands, Qiyuan, Deep Blue and AVATAR, plus Benben, Lumin and other products under the Changan brand to fully attack the new energy market, to achieve full coverage of the mainstream market of 0-400,000 yuan. Geely's competitiveness in the new energy market is also continuing to improve, its Galaxy series, Geometry series sales in March are more than 10,000 units, for the high-end pure electric market Zeekr brand, sold 13,012 cars in March, a month-on-month increase of more than 73%, a year-on-year increase of more than 95%, of which the new Zeekr 001 in the first month of the market, has exceeded 30,000 units.
The new ZEEKR 001, image source: ZEEKR Automobile
Great Wall and SAIC Passenger Vehicle also entered the top 10 list of car companies in March.
According to the sales data released by Great Wall Motors, the Haval brand sold a total of 54,055 cars in March, a year-on-year increase of 13.99%; although the absolute sales of the Wei brand were not high, 3,608 cars were sold in March, but an increase of 183% year-on-year; the sales volume of the tank brand in March was 18,953 units, a year-on-year increase of 58.6%, and the tank is already the most appealing brand in the domestic off-road vehicle market. In addition, Great Wall Ora also recorded sales of 6,022 units in March.
SAIC Motor sold 78,000 units in March, of which 18,612 units were exported, making it the third largest domestic automaker in terms of export sales in March.
FAW-Volkswagen is a strong leader in the joint venture market
In the market share battle in March, the trend of independent advance and joint venture retreat is still obvious. According to the sales data released by the China Passenger Car Association, the wholesale sales of independent automakers in March were 1.296 million units, while the wholesale sales of mainstream joint venture automakers were only 580,000 units, a significant gap.
Volkswagen is still leading the joint venture camp. However, the gap in sales data between Volkswagen's two major joint ventures in China was relatively large in March. In March, FAW-Volkswagen sold more than 150,000 vehicles, making it the sales champion among joint venture brands and the only car company in the joint venture camp with monthly sales exceeding 100,000 units. SAIC Volkswagen ranks second in the sales list of joint venture automakers, but its monthly sales are only 90,000 units. Of course, for SAIC Volkswagen, the monthly sales of 90,000 have increased by more than double digits compared with the same period last year, which can be regarded as a big breakthrough in the current new market competition environment.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that for BYD to launch special models (last year's champion version and this year's glory version), the "play" of price reduction and market fighting, and now some joint venture car companies have begun to learn from it. For example, SAIC Volkswagen has recently launched a series of models such as the Passat Excellence, the Tiguan L, and the Lavida Excellence, further enhancing its competitiveness in the fuel vehicle market by lowering the official price.
North-South Volkswagen is also the two most prominent new energy brands among the mainstream joint venture brands. In March, Volkswagen sold a total of 17,822 NEVs, accounting for 48% of the mainstream joint venture EV market. Previously, the sales data released by SAIC Volkswagen showed that the sales of SAIC Volkswagen's ID. family exceeded the 10,000 mark in March, once again leading the joint venture pure electric camp. Up to now, the cumulative sales of SAIC Volkswagen's ID. family have approached 250,000 units, and Volkswagen's electrification transformation strategy in China can be said to have achieved initial results. In addition to Volkswagen in the north and south, Volkswagen Anhui, Volkswagen's third joint venture in China, has finally made substantial progress recently after more than three years of preparation. Volkswagen Anhui appeared in the new car publicity catalog of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in March, and the first model, ID.UNYX (Chinese name and public), should not make everyone wait too long.
Image source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology website
Although SAIC-GM-Wuling is not a typical joint venture car company (mainly selling foreign-owned brand products), from the perspective of equity structure, it also belongs to the category of joint ventures, so in our monthly car company sales analysis, SAIC-GM-Wuling will also be classified in the camp of joint venture car companies. In March, SAIC-GM-Wuling once again entered the top 10 list of car companies, with a total of 65,000 cars sold, of which more than half were contributed by new energy products. SAIC-GM-Wuling sold a total of 34,398 NEVs in March.
Tesla China performed moderately well in March, with a total of 89,000 new vehicles sold, a slight increase of 0.2% year-on-year. At present, it is a relatively difficult time for Tesla, in the world, Tesla's once strong position has been shaken, not to mention the Chinese market that has fallen into the "big chaos" of independent new energy products, Tesla, which has not had a new product, can only rely on continuous price adjustments to maintain the market heat.