Mercedes, GM sales in China dropped in January
China sales for Mercedes-Benz and General Motors both declined in January as the week-long Lunar New Year holiday shortened the monthly sales period.
Deliveries of Mercedes-Benz vehicles in China and Hong Kong declined 7 percent year-on-year to 14,463 units in January. Sales declined in part because Beijing Benz Automotive Co. had limited availability of some hot-selling models, the company reported.
Beijing Benz is a joint venture between Daimler AG and state-owned Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp.
In January, Daimler sold 1,464 Smart cars in China. Year-earlier sales results were not available for the two-seater.
General Motors and its joint ventures reported sales of 246,454 vehicles in China in January, down 8 percent year-on-year.
The U.S. automaker's microvan joint venture, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., reported sales of 119,948 units. Those figures include 9,006 Baojun compact cars; the rest were microvans. GM did not post
year-earlier microvan sales.
GM's joint venture with SAIC Motor Corp. sold 124,073 Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac vehicles in China, down 4 percent.
FAW-GM Light Commercial Vehicle Co., GM's joint venture with China FAW Group Corp., sold 2,433 vehicles in China last month.
GM China's January sales figures do not include exports of Chinese-built vehicles to foreign markets.
