GM China Up In August
Now that we have the August numbers for the world’s second largest car market, attention turns to the world’s largest, China. The Chinese economy is cooling down. Has it hit car sales? Official numbers won’t be here until next week, but our patent=pending China sales oracle has spoken.
GM sales in China rose 7.3 percent from the previous August to 220,996 units.
Shanghai GM is up 11.7 percent ,SAIC-GM-Wuling is up 3.4 percent, FAW-GM is up 17.4 percent.
GM’s Chinese volume machine, the three-way Wuling joint venture, is back to normal. In July, Wuling sales were up a surprising 32,7 percent, while the segment was down. This month, Wuling sales are up a sedate 4.1 percent. No numbers were given for Baojun.
As the table shows, GM China is getting better in its numbers delivery. Fewer and fewer numbers have to be calculated (blue number), fewer numbers are missing. But sometimes, GM just can’t help it and reverts back to the old spin. No year on year percentage was given for Aughiust Cadillac sales – always a bad sign. Not surprisingly, when one goes back to the archives, it turns out that Cadillac is down 16.9 percent.
All in all, GM’s August numbers indicate that the Chinese market is still hanging in there. At least officially.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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