Following the announcement of the top ten sales lists of domestic automakers in January, the China Passenger Federation released its January sales list of passenger cars by market segment on February 9. The Mercedes-Benz GLC has done well as a German luxury SUV, but moving up to fifth place in SUV sales stll has everyone surprised.
Due to the Chinese New Year holiday, the SUV sold 623,000 units in January, a decrease of 36.2 percent from the previous year and 39 percent from the previous month. Additionally, the sales of SUVs that only use electric power have dramatically declined as a result of the termination of the new energy subsidy strategy. Next, let’s take a look at the SUV market sales in China in January.
As you may have guessed, top 1 is BYD Song. With 49,709 units sold in January, up 121.4 percent year on year, it retook the top spot in SUV sales by a landslide.
Not only did BYD Song lead SUV sales in 2022, it also overtook other models as the most popular one in China. According to its January results, it also took up a third of all of BYD’s sales. Therefore, it is extremely likely that the BYD Song will be the best-selling vehicle of the year in 2023.
The Changan CS75 replaced the BYD Song as the second-best selling SUV in December of last year. However, Changan CS75 is well behind BYD Song in terms of sales, selling 21,620 vehicles in January, a decrease of 32.7% from the same month last year.
The Haver H6, the most popular SUV during the gas-powered period, was in third on the list of SUVs, selling 16,663 units, whose sales volume decreased 50% from a year ago but increased 4.39% from the month before.
BYD remains in fourth place, with Yuan PLUS sales of 14,342 units, up 617.1% year on year, and is expected to be the most popular SUV model in January.
The Mercedes-Benz GLC, which came in at number five and sold 14,317 cars, down 35.9% from the previous year, caught some people off guard. Mercedes-Benz GLC has been doing well as a German luxury SUV, but I was surprised to see it this time around at fifth place on the SUV sales list.
The Tesla Model Y followed, selling 14,184 units.
To be honest, I don’t believe the Model Y performed well in the January market. After all, it already offers such a large discount while selling so little. It’s also possible that the majority of the vehicles are being shipped to foreign markets, given that Tesla shipped approximately 40,000 vehicles overseas in January.
Boyue L, Changan CS55, BMW X5 and BMW X3 are the models rated seventh to tenth in terms of sales volume.
With a starting price of 600,000 yuan, the BMW X5 finished ninth in SUV sales with 10,694 units sold. Even unusual is the absence of any Japanese SUVs among the top 15 sales in January. Will Japanese SUV sales in 2023 be a failure?