SMM: as of September, China's car sales have been growing for six consecutive months, of which the growth rate has been more than 10% in the past five months, showing a rapid recovery trend. Thanks to the demand for high-end purchases from upgraded consumption, coupled with the price advantage brought about by promotional discounts on luxury models, the luxury car segment has also achieved year-on-year growth for six consecutive months. During the "Golden Nine" period, sales of luxury brands reached another record high, with a year-on-year growth rate of about 33%.
With the steady growth of the luxury car market in recent months, most international luxury brands have performed quite well in China in the first three quarters. In the front-line luxury brand camp, the competition between Mercedes-Benz and BMW is becoming increasingly fierce. The gap between the cumulative sales of Mercedes-Benz and BMW in China in the first three quarters is about 10, 000 vehicles, while Audi lags slightly behind with cumulative sales of 512000 vehicles. Lexus still leads the second camp of luxury brands, followed by Cadillac by a narrow margin. Tesla has overtaken Porsche in sales, while Lincoln's sales grew by more than 60 per cent in September and the third quarter.
Front-line luxury brand camp: Mercedes-Benz is slightly better than BMW
Data show that in the third quarter of this year, BMW (including MINI sales) sold a total of 230612 vehicles in China, an increase of 31% over the same period last year, surpassing Mercedes-Benz by nearly 7, 000, making it the top seller in the quarter. However, in terms of cumulative sales in the first three quarters, Mercedes-Benz is still slightly better, selling 569698 vehicles, ahead of BMW by 10, 000. But BMW's sales have been strong since August, so the final quarter's sales performance is particularly important as to who will win the top spot in annual sales.
Audi brand performance is also commendable. Audi sold 512100 vehicles in China in the first three quarters of this year, up 4.4 per cent from a year earlier, the best performance since the brand entered the Chinese market for 32 years and exceeded 500000 for the first time in nine months. Domestic models have become the backbone of Audi brand sales growth, with A6L sales up 56.5% year-on-year and Audi A8L, the brand's flagship model, up 32.2% year-on-year.
In recent years, China has become the world's largest single market for Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi. Thanks to a strong rebound in car demand in the Chinese market, both Mercedes-Benz and BMW beat expectations in the third quarter. As global trade tensions continue to rise, the three luxury car giants say they will continue to focus on growth in China, which is expected to remain the largest growth market for BBA in the next decade.
The second camp of luxury brands: improving Lexus as a whole, clinging to Cadillac.
Apart from the top three German luxury cars, competition among second-tier luxury brands is equally fierce.
Among them, Lexus, Cadillac and Volvo remain firmly in the top three of the second-tier camp. In September, Lexus sold more than 20, 000 vehicles in China, up 13.3 per cent from a year earlier. In the first three quarters of this year, Lexus's cumulative sales in China were 158439, up 9.6 per cent from a year earlier.
It is worth noting that the "second-tier luxury car" sales war between Lexus and Cadillac has also become white-hot. Cadillac sold 26000 cars in September, a year-on-year increase of 41.7%, the highest monthly sales so far this year, according to the data. However, in terms of cumulative sales in the first three quarters of this year, Cadillac lagged behind Lexus by a small margin of less than 6000 vehicles. If Cadillac continues to be as strong as it was in September, it is not impossible for Cadillac to overtake Lexus at the top of the second-tier luxury car by the end of the year.
In terms of sales momentum, Volvo has performed relatively well in the second-tier luxury market segment, with sales of 17292 new cars in China in September, up 15.9 per cent from a year earlier, and cumulative sales of 113278 in the first three quarters, up 3.4 per cent from a year earlier.
Jaguar Land Rover continued its steady upward trend in the first half of this year, with sales in China continuing to grow to 27188 vehicles in the third quarter, up 14.6 per cent from the second quarter, 3.7 per cent year-on-year, and even 28.5 per cent in September compared with the same period last year. The Land Rover brand performed strongly, with quarterly sales of many of its models growing by double digits. Among them, range Rover will grow by nearly 30% year-on-year, and Aurora will increase by more than 50% year-on-year. The overall performance of the Jaguar brand was also positive in the third quarter, with XFL and E-PACE up 20 per cent and 18.7 per cent year-on-year, respectively, while XEL's monthly sales rose 12.7 per cent in September.
In the first three quarters, the Porsche brand delivered a total of 62800 cars in China. As Porsche's largest single market in the world, China is the first to emerge from the epidemic ahead of other markets. Porsche delivered more than 23200 vehicles in China in the third quarter, up 7 per cent from a year earlier. Of these, 8600 vehicles were delivered in September, an increase of more than 19% year-on-year.
In September, Lincoln delivered 7300 cars in China, up 75% from a year earlier, and sales in China rose 64.8% in the third quarter from a year earlier, an all-time high. Lincoln adventurers sold more than 4000 units a month for the first time, setting a new record for monthly sales of single models for five months in a row. Lincoln pilots sold more than 1400 units a month, an increase of 52 percent over the previous month. With the rapid landing of the localization process of Lincoln brand, it is believed that Lincoln will gradually develop its strength in the luxury car market.
On this list, there is one enterprise that deserves special attention, and that is Tesla. In the first year of mass delivery of Tesla's domestic Model 3 in China, sales in the first three quarters have surpassed those of several luxury car companies, according to the FIFA data. If you add in the delivery of imported models, the sales figures will be even higher. In addition, with the improvement of the production capacity of Tesla's Shanghai factory and the follow-up delivery of domestic Model Y, Tesla will share a bigger "cake" in the Chinese market.
