GM sales fall 0.4% in April in China, Ford sales flat
General Motors Co. said Thursday its sales with joint ventures in China fell last month, down 0.4 percent year-over-year, while Ford Motor Co. said it sold 96,889 vehicles, flat from the same month a year earlier.
GM said it sold 258,484 vehicles last month in China, its largest sales market. The company did not immediately offer a reason for the decline but said last month it began reporting retail deliveries to consumers rather than wholesale deliveries to dealers in China.
LMC Automotive noted that China’s light vehicle market in March began to show signs it was slowing down and some automakers, including Shanghai Volkswagen cut prices on vehicles, while Changan Ford and Beijing Hyundai added incentives to boost sales, “leaving little doubt as to the extent of the pressure being exerted by the stagnating growth.”
GM said sales of Buicks fell 8.5 percent to 63,307 vehicles compared to April 2014, Chevrolet sales dropped 5.6 percent to 49,528 vehicles and Wuling sales fell 5.1 percent to 114,740 vehicles.
Cadillac luxury brand sales rose 4.6 percent in April to 6,197 vehicles and Baojun sales soared 365.8 percent to 24,301 vehicles. GM is forecasting sales growth in China this year, where the company hit 1 million sales this year on April 9, the earliest time in its history. Through April, overall GM sales in China are up 7.1 percent compared to the same months in 2014. Ford sales year-to-date through April also are up 7 percent.
Last year, GM sold more than 3.5 million vehicles in China. GM CEO Mary Barra last month said she expects China market growth of about 6 percent to 7 percent annually through 2019. The carmaker is investing $14 billion from 2014 to 2018 in new vehicles and manufacturing plants in China.
Ford said its passenger car joint venture Changan Ford Automobile sold 72,579 vehicles last month, up 7 percent year-over-year, while Jiangling Motors Corporation sales totaled 23,019 vehicles, down 10 percent.
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