Despite continuing sluggish growth in Chinese car sales, the luxury car market continues to rise, as more consumers choose the option of upgrading to a better quality, higher status vehicle, Yicai.com reported.
According to the China Passenger Car Association, in 2017, sales of luxury cars increased 18% from a year earlier, compared to only 1.4% in growth of overall car sales.
The sales data released by car companies shows that the first tier of luxury cars, including Audi, BMW and Mercedes, have witnessed a year-on-year rise of 1.1%, 1.5% and 25.9% respectively over last year.
While the second tier luxury brands, including Cadillac, Jaguar Land Rover, Lexus and Volvo, all report growth of more than 20% from a year earlier.
In 2017, China surpassed 210 million in car ownership, and more than 60% of private cars have entered the age of five years.
Thus, the replacement demand will continue to rise. The luxury car market is expected to continue its more-than-10% annual growth of sales in the following years, according to a report released by Essence International.