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.

While Mercedes sales were weak, overall industry sales suffered a steep 24 percent downturn to 1.2 million units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. (See related story in this newsletter.)

Ford and its two joint ventures sold 30,976 vehicles in January, down 42 percent from a year earlier. Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co. sold 18,324 Ford-brand vehicles. Ford's commercial vehicle joint venture, Jiangling Motors Corp., sold 12,045 vehicles.

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.