On August 11, the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) published the domestic auto sales figures for July. A notable shift occurred compared to June, with a new energy vehicle (NEV) startup surpassing Great Wall Motor, a prominent independent automotive brand, catching many off guard. Let's first examine the overall sales landscape in the domestic passenger car market. Cumulative sales reached 1.461 million units, experiencing declines both year-over-year and month-over-month. Specifically, sales dropped by 20.9% year-over-year and 8.8% month-over-month. For the first seven months of the year, cumulative sales amounted to 10.173 million units, still showing a 20.3% decrease year-over-year.

The primary reason for such a substantial decline is that numerous automotive brands pushed hard to meet their half-year sales targets at the end of June, releasing a flood of orders. This led to a month-over-month downturn in the domestic auto market in July. The year-over-year decline exceeding 20% is likely closely tied to adjustments in NEV purchase taxes and trade-in subsidies. Additionally, influenced by escalating fuel prices, despite continuous price reductions, sales of fuel-powered vehicles kept declining, with a year-over-year decrease as steep as 41%.

Now, let's delve into the specific sales rankings of automakers. For the sake of fairness, we will utilize wholesale passenger car sales data as our benchmark for analysis. Relying solely on domestic retail data would be unfair to automakers like Chery and BYD, which boast high overseas export volumes. In first place, BYD sold 411,000 units, marking a 20.4% increase year-over-year, clearly leading the domestic automakers by a substantial margin. There's little to elaborate on BYD's sales, as it has been the domestic sales champion for numerous consecutive years, and there's no doubt about its successful retention of the title this year.

In second place, Chery Automobile sold 266,000 units in July, up 23% year-over-year. Chery's ability to hold onto its second-place position in automaker sales stems not only from its sustained leadership in overseas market sales but also significantly from the substantial growth in NEV sales. Taking July as an instance, Chery's NEV sales surged by 97.5% year-over-year. The Chery QQ3EV has witnessed sales exceed 10,000 units for two consecutive months, displaying robust momentum.

In third place, Geely Automobile sold 248,000 units in July, up 4.4% year-over-year. Among mainstream independent automotive brands in China, Geely stands out as the only one with strong sales in both fuel-powered and NEV sectors. In the fuel-powered vehicle segment, the Geely Xingyue L and Xingrui are among the few models that can go head-to-head with joint venture fuel-powered vehicles in their class in terms of sales. Moreover, Geely Galaxy features best-selling models like the Geely Xingyuan.

SAIC Passenger Vehicles took fourth place, with 107,000 units sold in July, up 78.2% year-over-year. Although SAIC Passenger Vehicles ranks fourth and boasts a high growth rate, it is clearly lagging far behind the top three automakers—BYD, Chery, and Geely. In fifth place, we have Leapmotor, which sold 101,000 units in July, up 102% year-over-year.

A closer inspection of June's sales data reveals that Leapmotor ranked seventh, trailing behind Changan and Great Wall Motor. Unexpectedly, in July, Leapmotor leapfrogged these two established automakers to enter the top five in sales.

Tesla, Great Wall Motor, Changan Automobile, SAIC-GM-Wuling, and FAW-Volkswagen ranked sixth to tenth in July's sales rankings, respectively. I won't list the specific sales data one by one; instead, I'll provide the images for those interested to scrutinize carefully.

Overall, the top three sales positions held by BYD, Chery, and Geely are unlikely to be challenged by other automakers in the near future. It is regrettable that Great Wall Motor, a mainstream independent automotive brand that was once as renowned and had sales comparable to the aforementioned three automakers, has now been overtaken by Leapmotor, which is truly disheartening.

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