China imports July 2022: Porsche surges 41.9% in market down -12.9%

The Porsche Cayenne is up 68.3% year-on-year in China.

76,279 new imports found a buyer in China in July, that’s a -12.9% year-on-year fall bringing the year-to-date tally off -24.1% to 440,583 units. Lexus (-15.6%) easily retains the brands top spot with over 19,000 sales, followed by Mercedes (-10.4%). Porsche surges 41.9% year-on-year and remains in third place above BMW (-37.3%) penalised by the end of X5 imports as the model is now produced locally. Audi (-47.4%) is hit particularly hard but stays in 5th position, distancing Land Rover (-6.5%), Cadillac and Toyota (-6.9%). Mini (-30.3%) sinks whereas Volvo (-1.6%) is almost stable in the remainder of the Top 10. Below, Volkswagen (+10.1%), Ferrari (+630.4%), Lamborghini (+40.3%) and Aston Martin (+23.3%) post the only additional gains in the market.

Model-wise, the Lexus ES (-8.2%) is #1 for the 9th consecutive month, just missing out on the 10,000 monthly sales milestone. The Lexus RX (-0.1%) follows above the Mercedes GLE (+13.1%) and Porsche Cayenne (+68.3%) both in outstanding shape. It also means the Top 4 is identical to June and YTD. In 5th place we have a real oddity: the Cadillac Lumin. This is supposed to be a concept car and there is no trace of it on the Cadillac website, yet it is recorded as selling over 3,100 units. Even if this is a mistake and is in fact the imported Lyriq the sales remain quite high for it. The mysteries of China car sales reporting are at play here. The Porsche Macan (+37.4%) and Panamera (+40.2%) also defy the negative market and with the Volvo XC90 (+8.9%) post gains in the remainder of the Top 10.

Previous month: China imports June 2022: Porsche (+28.2%), Volvo (+22%) ignore market down -18.9%

One year ago: China imports July 2021: Mini, BMW, Audi impress in market up 2.8%

Full July 2022 Top 30 all brands and Top 145 all models below.