While car sales across the world have been crippled by the coronavirus, it’s emerged that sales of luxury cars have bounced back strongly in China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Information from the China Automobile Dealers Association reveals that luxury car dealers in the country sold 277,000 vehicles in April, an 11.1 per cent increase over the same month last year. Thanks to this increase, luxury cars accounted for 18.7 per cent of the market in April, a 3.6 per cent rise over April 2019 and a 0.4 per cent increase over the market share in March.
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As Shine notes, while April saw a resurgence in luxury vehicles, sales of such cars are still down 16.4 per cent year on year, to 795,000 units in the first four months of 2020.
In March, a number of luxury car manufacturers throughout the country introduced policies to revive sales, including incentives and promotional funds. Some also provided vehicles in advance to help dealers restart their operations. For example, Audi provided A6L and Q5L models and reduced the sales burden and assessment of dealers. It also offered subsidies of up to 3,000 yuan ($420) to front-line sales staff. BMW also introduced policies to support dealers from March to May.
Li Yanwei, an analyst at the China Automobile Dealers Association, says most support policies from car manufacturers will continue to the end of May.
All major German luxury brands enjoyed sales increases in April. At Mercedes-Benz, sales jumped by 4.7 per cent to 62,200 units while at BMW, sales hit 67,000, an increase of 9.4 per cent. Audi enjoyed a sales increase of 29.9 per cent to 61,500 units while Porsche sales surged by 23.9 per cent to 8,767 in April. Tesla sales also jumped by 121 per cent to 4,255 units last month.
