Shanghai (ZXZC)- ZXZC summarized the top 4 Japanese automakers by the sales volume they created in China last month. In July, Toyota transcended Nissan and took the championship by China sales. Similar to the performance in June, Honda still faced year-on-year drop in both monthly sales and year-to-date sales. Mazda attained a sales increase over the previous month, while faced a sales decline compared with the corresponding period in the previous year.

Toyota

Toyota said on August 2 that its July unit sales in China rose 17% from a year earlier to 127,400 units, marking a monthly record and a fifth straight month of growth. Its Lexus luxury brand sales in China soared 37.5% to around 15,000 units. For the first seven months, the Japanese automaker delivered a total of 807,400 vehicles in this country, ranking second in terms of the cumulative sales.

China in May decided to lower tariffs on imported passenger vehicles to 15% from 25%. The cut took effect July 1, and Toyota lowered prices of 10 Lexus models on the same day, by RMB 27,000 on average. Since a large part of Toyota cars is manufactured in China, it was rarely affected by the tariff reduction.

The joint venture GAC Toyota sales in July jumped 23.2% year on year to 51,118 units. At the same time, the automaker also saw its year-to-date sales evidently grow 17.5% over the previous year to 306,506 units.

Nissan

In July, Nissan vehicle sales in China edged up 2.0% over a year ago to 106,859 units (including imported vehicles), according to the data released by the automaker.

Among that, the PV sales of Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Venucia in July totaled 88,260 units, climbing 4.2% year on year. Besides, the July sales of the CV unit (including Dongfeng Automobile Co., and Zhengzhou-Nissan) fell by 7% over the year-ago period to 14,979 units.

For the first seven months, the China vehicle sales volume totaled about 827,306 units for Nissan, up 9.5% compared with the same period in 2017. Its PV sales rose 10.6% year on year with 691,227 vehicles delivered so far this year, and the CV cumulative sales reached 113,064 units, up by 7.7% from a year earlier.

Honda

Honda Motor's China sales declined 7.8% in July over the previous year to 105,960 units, according to the sales data released by Honda China. For the first seven months, the company saw its cumulative sales drop 6.6% year on year in the world's largest auto market to 715,060 units.

GAC Honda delivered 54,605 vehicles in total last month, a slight year-on-year drop of 0.8%. Meanwhile, the other joint venture Dongfeng Honda's July sales also declined 7.8% from the year-ago period to 105,960 units.

Although the year-to-date sales of the CR-V still tumbled 48.5% compared with the year-ago period, the monthly sales of the SUV model presented a substantial year-on-year jump of 160.3% with its July sales totaling 10,377 units. However, Dongfeng Honda didn't dodge the overall sales shrink last month because most of its models suffered a year-on-year drop of over 20%. 

Mazda

Mazda's China vehicle sales amounted to 20,597 units in July, falling 10.6% compared with the same period in 2017, Mazda Motor (China) Co., Ltd said on August 3. From January to July, the automaker saw its cumulative sales in China reach a new high of 166,436 units, a year-on-year increase of 5.0%.

As to its two joint ventures in China, FAW-Mazda's year-to-date sales presented a tiny year-on-year drop of 1.0% with 67,132 vehicles handed over for the first seven months. The company plans to launch the overhauled model of its sales driver Atenza in 2019, which is expected to carry the next-generation SKYACTIV-X engine, boasting lower fuel consumption and stronger impetus.

Changan Mazda achieved a year-on-year growth in cumulative sales with 99,304 vehicles delivered from January to July. The automaker is ready to introduce the brand-new Mazda CX-8 SUV in the fourth quarter, which has been unveiled at 2017 Tokyo Motor Show, and start to locally produce the new model afterwards.