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First-tier luxury brand competition is fierce, Audi won the 2018 Chinese luxury car market single-brand sales champion, if the smart brand is included, Mercedes-Benz is the first annual sales. As China's new car sales continue to decline, the luxury car market is on its own, with overall sales on the rise, but also polarized. With the three German giants releasing sales data one after another, let's take a look at this year's ranking of first-tier luxury brands.

After the sales announcement in May, BMW won the monthly championship with a big increase, but overall Mercedes-Benz still took the lead, while Audi slipped from the top position to third place.

BMW's sales in China have been relatively stable, but it has counterattacked in a depressed car market. In May, BMW (including mini and Rolls-Royce brands) sold 60903 vehicles in China, up 32.8% from a year earlier, winning the month's top luxury car sales. In the first five months of this year, BMW grew 15.9 per cent to 288506 vehicles from a year earlier, slightly behind Mercedes-Benz and still in second place.

The domestically made BMW X3 has become the main driving force for BMW, with sales of 46000 vehicles from January to May. In addition, the BMW 5-Series also sold 13700 vehicles in May, higher than 11000 of Mercedes-Benz E-Class and 5574 of Audi A6L. In terms of imported cars, the update of BMW X7, X5, 7 series and other models also helped to increase BMW sales.

Mercedes-Benz sales fell in May! Mercedes-Benz (including smart) sold 55589 vehicles in the month, down 0.9% from a year earlier, and its first monthly decline this year. Mercedes-Benz sold 287639 vehicles in China in the first five months, an increase of 1.6% over the same period last year, ranking first in the first-tier luxury formation.

Mercedes-Benz has been repeatedly affected by negative news recently. In April, the Xi'an Mercedes-Benz oil spill incident became popular all over the network, and the final identification result was that there were assembly defects in the Mercedes-Benz engine. In May, 570000 domestic Mercedes-Benz E-Class and Mercedes-Benz C-Class cars were recalled, almost the total sales of Mercedes-Benz in the past year. When the long-standing front shock absorber of the vehicle is impacted by a large external force, it may cause the damage of the shock absorber and the deformation and bending of the shock absorber fork head, and even cause the bushing of the lower control arm of the vehicle to protrude, which may lead to the fracture of the shock absorber fork head in extreme cases.

Audi flameout, slipped from first to third, and was overtaken by Mercedes-Benz and BMW one after another. Audi sold 47927 vehicles in May, down 7.4% from a year earlier. Audi's sales in the previous month were 253625, down 1.9% from a year earlier, and the gap with Mercedes-Benz and BMW widened to about 35000.

Audi officials say the adverse effects of the upgrading of Audi's A6L and Q3 models continue.

In fact, Audi's sales of newly launched models are also mediocre. Audi A6L sold only 5575 vehicles in May, down 51% from a year earlier and 28% to 42427 from January to May, according to the Federation of passengers. The replacement of another major model, Audi Q5, fell short of expectations, with sales of 8613 vehicles in May, down 13% from January to May, down 24.6% to 40, 000. Audi's main sales models are lagging behind its competitors.

Taken together, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are expected to compete for the top spot this year, and their sales performance and market attention are expected after the launch of the new generation 3-Series in September. Audi stalled this year, the replacement of new car sales are not expected, product power does not surprise the market, if there is no room for market concessions, sales are expected to fall.

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