China retail August 2020: Changan (+73.7%), BMW (+58%), Haval (+43.8%) help market up a solid +8.8%

Haval has introduced its largest SUV to-date, called Big Dog (no joke).

According to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), retail sales of locally-made Passenger Vehicles in China shoot up 8.8% year-on-year in August to 1.728.000 units, posting the largest increase since May 2018 for the second month in a row (July was up 7.9%).  This figure includes cars, SUVs, MPVs and minibuses. The CPCA said the roll-out of new products driven by the Chengdu Motor Show as well as greater discounts invigorated the PV market in August. In the segment detail, cars are up  8.4% to 823.000 units, SUVs surge 10.6% to 782.000, MPVs edge up 0.7% to 99.000 and minibuses are up 1.4% to 25.000. Year-to-date, the Chinese locally-made retail market is off -15.2% to 11.209.000 units, a loss of over 2 million units compared to the same period in 2019. This includes 5.300.000 cars (-18%), 5.087.000 SUVs (-9.6%), 627.000 MPVs (-29.9%) and 195.000 minibuses (-14.1%). The selection of vehicles included in this update is up a whopping 19% to 1.711.468 units, leading to a YTD tally down -19.4% to 10.788.973. BSCB is the only non-Chinese medium to cover both wholesales (ex-factory shipments) and retail sales data for China so you can get the most complete picture of the largest new car market in the world. Retail sales tend to give a more authentic picture of the market as they roughly correspond to registrations by end-customers and are more difficult to artificially boost by manufacturers which can sometimes be the case for wholesales data.

The JAC Jiayue X8 has landed into our retail sales charts.

Exactly like in July, the Top 12 brands are all in positive, with this time only three showing single-digit gains. Unlike in the wholesales charts where it just can’t seem to catch up with the market, here Volkswagen (+6.7%) manages a second straight month of gains, managing the exact same ratio as in July. It is helped by strong performances by the Teramont X (+65.56%), Tharu (+45%), Bora (+24.7%), Golf (+20.8%), Sagitar (+20.2%), Lavida (+13.6%), Magotan (+10%) and T-Cross (+7.7%). Honda (+24.4%) jumps back into the 2nd spot as it also does wholesales-wise thanks to the Elysion (+356%), Vezel (+131.5%), XR-V (+95.2%), UR-V (+60.1%), Inspire (+29.2%), Accord (+17.9%), Civic (+13.4%), CR-V (+12.6%) and new Breeze (11.857). Toyota (+28.1%) is the most dynamic in the Top 5, propped up by the Avalon (+131.8%), Corolla (+53.3%), Yaris L (+41.2%), RAV4 (+21.7%), Levin (+21.4%), Camry (+13.8%) and Highlander (+10.1%). Nissan (+6.7%) and Geely (+7.6%) round out the Top 5 with more modest gains.

The Dongfeng Aeolus Hyun now has a station wagon variant called GS.

The remainder of the Top 10 all outpace the market, with Changan (+73.7%) once again the most dynamic of all and also lodging the largest gain in the Top 20 in August thanks to continued blockbuster receptions for the CS55 Plus (record 10.146), UNI-T (7.072), CS75 Plus (+2868.7%) and redesigned Yuexiang (+184.9%), Raeton CC (+160.1%) and Eado (+135.3%). BMW (+58%) also stuns due to exceptional scores by the 3 Series L (+487.6%), X3 (+40.8%) and 5 Series L (+28.1%) while Audi (+26.9%) and Mercedes (+17.3%) also impress. Just outside the Top 10, Haval (+43.8%) manages an almost identical gain as in July (+43.4%) thanks to the evergreen M6 (+101.4%), the new generation H6 (+77%), as well as the H9 (+411.7%) and F7 (+31.8%). Wuling (+34.6%) also scores a very impressive gain due to the arrival of the Hongguang MINI EV (9.078) but also the Rongguang (+123.4%) and Sunshine (+105.3%) minibuses. Cadillac (+63.4%), Chery (+39.2%), BYD (+33.6%) and Ford (+18.6%) also stand out in the remainder of the Top 20, but once again the biggest gainer among large carmakers is Hongqi (+93.8%) smashing its monthly volume record to 18.266 vs. a previous best of 15.479 hit just last month. Neta (+1617.3%), Xpeng (+951.9%), Huasong (+631.7%), COS (+514.2%), Ora (+202.3%), Cowin (+201.1%), Weltmeister (+112.2%), NIO (+106.1% to a record 4.027), JAC (+102.1%), Volvo (+43%) and Jetour (+38.6%) also shine further down.

The Lynk & Co 06 improves to 225 sales.

Model-wise, the Nissan Sylphy (+47%) secures an 11th consecutive #1 spot, distancing the VW Lavida (+13.6%), Toyota Corolla (+53.3%) and VW Bora (+24.7%), with the Buick Excelle Yinlang (+33%) and VW Sagitar (+20.2%) making the Top 6 entirely composed of sedans. The Haval H6 (+77%) is faithful to the #1 SUV spot, the Honda Civic (+13.4%), Toyota Levin (+21.4%) and Honda CR-V (+12.6%) close to the Top 10 while incredibly, the entire Top 18 best-selling models are all up by double-digits at least! Wth the Changan CS75 Plus (#14) clocking up one year in market, the Honda Breeze (#38) becomes the #1 recent launch ahead of the Tesla Model 3 (#41), Changan CS55 Plus (#49), Wuling Hongguang MINI EV (#58), COS X7 (#68) and Changan UNI-T (#69). A quirk of the Chinese retail charts is that models sometimes (illogically) appear here before making their way into the wholesales charts, or there is a retail variant split unavailable in the wholesales data. We therefore have more new models in this list, and for August this list includes the Buick Encore S (#258), Dongfeng Fengshen Hyun GS (#259), JAC Jiayue X8 (#461), Polestar 2 (#462), Baojun RS-7 (#594) and the interestingly-named Haval Big Dog (#664).

Previous month: China retail July 2020: Changan (+91.9%), Buick (+44%), Wuling (+41.6%) impress in largest sales gain in over two years (+7.9%)

One year ago: China retail August 2019: Mercedes (+24.6%), Volvo (+10.5%) impress in market freefalling down -20.1%

Full August 2020 Top 127 All China-made brands, Top 842 All-models and Top 205 All New Energy models below.