General Motors’ (GM) China Sales Surge 16.9% Y/Y in May

General Motors Company GM and its joint ventures in China reported a 16.9% year-over-year increase in retail sales in May 2016, taking the figure to 295,282 vehicles. The improved performance was driven by strong demand for SUVs, MPVs and luxury vehicles, along with notable demand for passenger car models like Buick Excelle GT. The Buick, Cadillac and Baojun brands, and SUV lineup also recorded all-time high deliveries in May.

General Motors offers a wide range of vehicles – from passenger to commercial – and varied brands in China. The different brands are Baojun, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Jiefang and Wuling.

The Buick brand’s sales in China surged 61% to 100,864 units in May 2016. The upside was driven by an increase in sales of the Excelle family which doubled from 47,332 units sold in May last year. The brand’s demand for both SUVs and MPVs increased 24% to 30,954 units.

Sales of the Cadillac luxury vehicle brand witnessed a 30% rise to 8,568 units in May 2016. The automaker recorded strong demand − of more than 2,400 units − for both the XTS and ATS-L luxury sedans. Deliveries of the XT5 luxury crossover were 1,449 units in the first full month after its launch in the market.

The Baojun brand’s sales soared 80% to 43,515 vehicles in China. The improvement was driven by strong sales of Baojun 730 MPV and Baojun 560 SUV.

However, sales of Chevrolet decreased 24% to 38,114 units. Sales of the new flagship sedan, the Malibu XL, went up 37% year over year.

Wuling sales went down 5% in China to 104,170 units last month due to sluggish demand in the mini-commercial vehicle segment.

General Motors – a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock – is a leading global automotive company. It has 11 joint ventures and 2 wholly owned foreign enterprises, with more than 58,000 employees in China.

Some better-ranked automobile stocks include Autoliv, Inc. ALV, Oshkosh Corporation OSK and Superior Industries International, Inc. SUP. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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