On February 9th, the Chinese passenger car market handed over its transcript of the very beginning of the year. According to the data released by the National Passenger Car Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Federation"), in January 2017, sales of narrowly defined passenger car were 2074732 vehicles and dropped significantly. It is worth noting that retail share of most of the independent car company continue to grow, it has been growing in market share for 25 months since January 2015.

Proportion of SUV Raised

In fact, the passenger car market of independent brand continue to be prominent and the market share rise steadily, achieving a two-way growth of sales and market share. Summarizing the reasons that independent brands rise obviously, Automobile Association Deputy Secretary General Shi Jianhua said that from the sales structure, share enhance of independent brands is mainly caused by SUV market pull".

Cui Dongshu, the Federation Secretary General thinks the market share increase of independent brand is not on price promotions, but for diverting car market by the advantages of SUV, so that passive situation is caused that joint ventures have to compete for the market with independent brand SUV through big promotion, as a result, SUV products become the weapon to put out of the fire for independent brand.

The Growth Rate Meets Test

Although the first month sales of independent brand exceeded expectations, from the sales situation in January, the overall situation that independent brand is strong while the joint venture is relatively weak basically conforms to the industry overall tone at the end of last year. But Chinese Automobile Association Deputy Secretary General Lang Xuehong thinks that it is difficult to predict the trend of annual car sales for the full year of 2017 from January, the automobile market anticipation should to be judged from the sales of first two months.

At the same time, Cui Dongshu forecasts that in 2017 car market will grow slightly; SUV market will still rapidly grow, while the growth rate will drop significantly to the level of less than 20%. " Due to the capacity of many car companies has not been fully released, how to seize more market share in the gradually stabilized market is a great challenge for joint ventures and independent car enterprises." Cui Dongshu said.