Shanghai (ZXZC)- SAIC Motor saw its full-year sales in 2021 edge down 2.45% to 5,463,500 units, the company announced on Jan. 7.

In December last year, the Shanghai-based auto giant sold 660,960 new vehicles in total, representing an 11.47% year-on-year decrease. This was the eighth-month-in-a-row decline confronting SAIC Motor's monthly wholesales.

The drop in SAIC Motor's total annual sales was mainly attributed to the decline made by two joint ventures. SAIC-GM and SAIC Volkswagen posted 9.26% and 17.5% year-on-year decrease in 2021 sales respectively. Both of them suffered two-digit decline in Dec. sales.

According to SAIC-GM's WeChat post, the annual sales of Cadillac-branded vehicles in China hit new highs of 233,117 units.

SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW) was the biggest sales contributor to both annual and Dec. sales of SAIC Motor. The subsidiary witnessed its Dec. sales fall 10.61%, while its yearly still showed a 3.76% upward movement.

All-new Roewe RX5 MAX; photo credit: Roewe

As SAIC Motor's self-owned passenger vehicle unit, SAIC Motor PV saw its annual sales exceed 800,000 units for the first time. As of Dec. 2021, its monthly sales had surpassed 100,000 units for three straight months.

SAIC Motor said the group's sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) reached 732,646 units in 2021, shooting up 128.93% from the previous year. Of those, 94,460 units were sold last month, up 34.6% from the year-ago period.

Last year, SAIC Motor exported and sold in overseas markets a total of 697,249 vehicles (+78.93% YoY), around 290,000 units were contributed by SAIC PV Motor.