Luxury car brands buck market malaise

Luxury carmakers posted strong sales results in September in China, data from these automakers showed on Tuesday. Many of these brands also recorded robust sales growth for the year-to-date, despite overall weakness in the country's auto market.

Official data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers has not been released yet. Luxury car manufacturers achieved relatively good performances last month due to the arrival of peak season for sales, upgrades and replacement of vehicles.

Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus performed well. Lexus delivered 17,736 vehicles in September, up 10.2 percent year on year. In the first nine months of 2019, Lexus sold a total of 144,590 vehicles, up 22.8 percent compared with the same period last year.

German automaker Mercedes-Benz announced that together with the models delivered by its Smart brand, it sold a total of 533,241 units in the first nine months, up 4 percent year on year. The luxury carmaker said its sales totalled 62,351 vehicles in September, an increase of 11 percent year on year.

UK premium carmaker Jaguar Land Rover announced that it achieved a 24 percent increase in the third quarter of this year compared with last year. In September, car sales in China rose 18 percent. The company said rising sales were driven by efforts in working with car dealers and the introduction of new products into the market.

“The rise in the luxury car market in September is because the 'golden season' is coming, but the market did not see a sharp increase and I still remain cautious toward sales performances for the rest of this year, as the overall market is not good," said Zhang Xiaofeng, an independent market analyst.