Toyota, the world’s largest automaker by sales volume, announced their 2013 sales in China this week, having sold 927 500 vehicles with its joint venture companies, which is a 9.2% increase. Honda also drew a record number of buyers to their brand and saw sales jump to 756 882 units, a whopping 26% increase.
Both automakers recovered from the anti-Japanese boycotts that both companies suffered after consumers shunned Japanese products over the bitter and rhetoric-based territorial dispute between the two countries. In just about every other corner of the globe, this news would have been met with much fanfare, but in the topsy turvy world that is China, the fastest growing and largest market for passenger vehicles, Toyota actually dropped a place to become the sixth foreign automaker in sales volume ranking, the fifth place having been usurped by Ford.
Ford’s sales in the year just ended saw a tremendous jump of 49% to close out the year with 935 813 vehicles sold, with sales of 94 838 units in December alone. In a somewhat understated comment, John Lawler, Chairman and CEO of Ford Motor China, said “2013 has proved to be a milestone year for Ford’s accelerated growth in China as we delivered on our plan to bring to China, seven of Ford’s next-generation global vehicles.”
Whilst much has been made of the territorial dispute between Japan and China having dented the sales for Honda and Toyota, we may need to look at the sales for Nissan, who is fourth in the ranking and did not seem to have suffered in the same way. So perhaps Ford’s success is in the freshness of their products, something new in a market that is always looking for the next best thing.
GM and VW are still top dogs for foreign brands in the Chinese market with both companies reporting sales of more than three million units each and Hyundai a surprising third with about one million sales. When you look at the table for sales in 2012, this does bring home the rapid increase in sales for the territory:
|
Rank
|
Brand
|
Deliveries in 2012
|
|
1
|
Volkswagen
|
2 050 193
|
|
2
|
Wuling
|
1 212 277
|
|
3
|
Hyundai
|
855 996
|
|
4
|
Nissan
|
751 509
|
|
5
|
Changan (Chana)
|
748 279
|
|
6
|
Toyota
|
745 565
|
|
7
|
Chevrolet
|
704 857
|
|
8
|
Buick
|
700 007
|
|
9
|
Honda
|
587 415
|
|
10
|
Chery
|
556 993
|
|
11
|
Great Wall
|
487 370
|
|
12
|
Kia
|
480 566
|
|
13
|
BYD
|
456 056
|
|
14
|
Ford
|
418 501
|
|
15
|
Dongfeng
|
418 226
|
|
16
|
Audi
|
328 700
|
|
17
|
Suzuki
|
253 471
|
|
18
|
Skoda
|
230 003
|
|
19
|
Citroen
|
223 801
|
|
20
|
Peugeot
|
216 227
|
|
21
|
JAC
|
200 812 |
|
22
|
Geely Gleagle
|
178 630
|
|
23
|
Haima
|
172 767
|
|
24
|
Lifan
|
171 777
|
|
25
|
Mazda
|
171 771
|
|
26
|
BMW
|
162 620
|
|
27
|
Geely Emgrand
|
160 517
|
|
28
|
Geely Englon
|
152 297
|
|
29
|
Brilliance
|
152 245
|
|
30
|
Xiali
|
144 462
|
|
31
|
FAW
|
131 490
|
|
32
|
Roewe
|
127 501
|
|
33
|
Zotye
|
121 250
|
|
34
|
Mercedes-Benz
|
98 429
|
|
35
|
Soueast
|
79 083
|
|
36
|
Besturn
|
72 768
|
|
37
|
MG
|
72 516
|
|
38
|
Baojun
|
68 092
|
|
39
|
BAIC
|
55 996
|
|
40
|
Youngman Lotus
|
49 360
|
|
41
|
Hafei
|
45 942
|
|
42
|
Venucia
|
41 805
|
|
43
|
Hawtai
|
34 071
|
|
44
|
GAC
|
33 023
|
|
45
|
Luxgen
|
31 105
|
|
46
|
Changhe
|
30 031
|
|
47
|
Cadillac
|
30 010
|
|
48
|
Mitsubishi
|
27 477
|
|
49
|
Everus
|
24 576
|
|
50
|
JMC
|
22 667
|
|
51
|
Changfeng
|
20 210
|
|
52
|
Jinbei
|
16 814
|
|
53
|
Ciimo
|
14 089
|
|
54
|
Huanghai
|
13 292
|
|
55
|
Gonow
|
11 940
|
|
56
|
Fiat
|
11 288
|
|
57
|
Beijing
|
8 847
|
|
58
|
Volvo
|
7 453
|
|
59
|
Foton
|
6 187
|
|
60
|
Oley
|
6 154
|
|
61
|
Yema
|
5 116
|
|
62
|
Zhongxing
|
4 660
|
|
63
|
Meiya
|
966
|
|
64
|
Chrysler
|
50
|
