Sales of Chinese brand passenger vehicles rose 3.98 percent year on year during the January-May period.

Some 4.3 million domestic brand vehicles were sold, about 44 percent of all passenger vehicles sold in this period, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

SAIC, Geely and China Changan were the top three local producers in terms of passenger car sales from January to May.

German and Japanese cars took up 20.9 percent and 17.4 percent, respectively.