Sales of General Motors and its joint venture partners in China rose 16.9% to 295,282 in May from a year earlier, led by Buick, Cadillac and Baojun brands.
“While demand for our SUVs, MPVs and luxury vehicles remained strong, we also saw impressive demand for passenger car models such as the Buick Excelle GT,” said Matt Tsien, GM China president.
Buick sales rose 61% to 100,864 vehicles, with nearly half of those (47,332) the Excelle family sedan. Sales of Buick's SUVs and what, in China are known as multi-purpose vehicles climbed 24% from May 2015.
Cadillac sales jumped 30% to 8,568, as dealers sold more than 2,400 each of the XTS and ATS-L sedans. Sales of the new XT5 crossover were 1,449 in its first full month on the market.
Baojun is the brand created in 2010 to offer lower-priced vehicles especially in China's second and third-tier cities where car ownership rates are below the levels in cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing. Baojun deliveries rose 80% from May 2015 to 43,515 vehicles, most of which were the 730 MPV and the 560 SUV.
Chevrolet sales fell 24% to 38,114, despite a 37% increase from April in sales of the Malibu XL sedan.
Sales of Wuling, the brand of GM's commercial vehicles in China, slipped 5% from a year earlier.
In the first five months of 2016, GM and its joint ventures sold 1,536,913 vehicles in China, up 4.3% from January through May 2015.
