Chinese biggest automaker SAIC Motor reported a 7.87% year-on-year decrease in August sales, a slower downturn than that of July, but still faced the 12th-month-in-a-row decline.
The group has so far sold 3,863,948 new vehicles this year, compared with 4,535,822 units sold between January and August, 2018.
The top three subsidiaries by Jan.-Aug. sales all posted apparent drop. Particularly, sales volume of SAIC-GM-Wuling substantially fell 26.05% from the prior-year. Besides, they also failed to gain positive growth in August sales.
Although joint ventures all suffered downturn, SAIC's self-owned PV business got an Aug. sales volume higher than that of a year ago. According to the sales announcement, SAIC Motor PV sold 51,042 new vehicles last month with a slight increase of 2.07%.
In August, sales volume of MG-branded vehicles amounted to 21,927 units, jumping 28% year on year. Moreover, year-to-date sales of MG Motor India reached 4,500 units.
Roewe got a sales volume exceeding 29,000 units in August. Of that, respective sales of the Roewe RX5 and the RX5 MAX topped 10,000 units.
According to the semi-annual report, SAIC Motor's revenue for the first six months slide 19.52% from the previous year to RMB367.916 billion, while its shareholders' net profit slumped 27.49% to RMB13.764 billion.
Saddled with intensified downward pressure in macro economy, more severe supply-demand imbalance caused by the emission standard transformation and new energy vehicle (NEV) subsidy phase-out, the domestic auto market still remained negative from the second half of 2018, said SAIC Motor.
Facing the strong headwinds from the cooling market climate, the company is striving to foster new driving forces. During the first two quarters, SAIC Motor sold roughly 82,000 NEVs, achieving a surge of 42% over the prior-year. Sales volumes of vehicles exported and sold in overseas markets grew 11.5% to 145,000 units.
