By Li Tiezheng, Chang Yanjun

China's automotive market, after topping the 10-million mark in both output and sales volume of autos, still remains a thriving momentum. Except for high-grade ones, passenger cars are basically the objects that people who hold cash on hand intend to buy. Among which, the sport-utility-vehicle (SUV) market performs more remarkable. According to the statistics of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), 579,600 sets of SUVs have been sold from January to November, up 42.45 percent year on year. The Autumn Report on China's Imported Auto Market released recently by China Automobile Trading Co., Ltd shows that in the first three quarters, the volume of SUVs has increased by 29,000 sets year on year, occupying 82 percent of the added volume of imported autos. Viewing from the product structure, the volume of imported autos with mid and low emission has increased greatly year on year while that with high emission has declined obviously. From January to September of 2009, the volume of license plates of 3.0L-and-below autos has increased by 45.7 percent year on year.

Mercedes-Benz's SUV series keep hot sale. Since this year, the total sales volume of Benz's SUVs has taken up one quarter of that of Benz. The R-grade large sport tourer, which has been favorable in Chinese users, has been delivered by almost 3,800 sets in the first ten months. In November, the sales volume of Sportage of Dongfeng Yueda KIA surpassed 5,000 sets based on the fact that the monthly sales volume of Sportage has maintained at more than 4,000 sets for seven consecutive months. Even more, such auto types as Guangzhou Toyota's Highlander, Dongfeng Honda's CR-V, Dongfeng Nissan's X-TRAIL and Qashqai, FAW Toyota's RAV4 and Kia's imported Sorento have been involved in such a hot sale situation that people have to wait for autos after paying. Audi Q5 and Volkswagen's Tiguan are favored as soon as they debut in the market. Meanwhile, the SUV types manufactured by such domestic own-brand enterprises as Great Wall Motor., Chery Automobile Co., Ltd, Anhui Jianghuai Automobile co., Ltd and Huatai Automobile have also become bestsellers in the market.

Combining with the comfort and fashion of cars, as well as the high trafficability, wide vision and large space of off-road vehicles, SUV enjoys high favor, especially among the group intending to buy the second auto in China, lots of people have just aimed at SUV type. Experts in the industry believe that autos have changed Chinese people's life style, and the manner of long-holiday leisure and travel has also been diversified increasingly, so it's natural that the SUV, which can adapt to various roads and smoothly shuttle between cities and rural areas, are very popular. SUV is a perfect combination of the car and off-road vehicle. As far as multiple auto types sold in the market, there is nothing but two tropisms: one inclines to cars while the other inclines to off-road vehicles. Just because of such a diversification, SUV's fans have interspersed among various groups.

Taking a wide view of SUV type in Chinese market, it can be divided into three types based on the price: high grade SUVs valued more than RMB500,000 yuan with the emissions of 3.0L-and-above, which are mainly represented by such brands as Audi, Benz, BMW, LEXUS, Infiniti and Volvo; SUVs valued around RMB200,000 yuan to RMB500,000 yuan with the emissions of 2.0L-to-3.0L, which are represented by such brand auto types as Highlander, CR-V, RAV4, Sportage, Forester, Compass, Tucson and Captiva; SUVs valued less than RMB200,000 yuan with the emissions of 2.0L-and-below, which are mainly represented by such brand auto types as Santa Fe, Rein, Great Wall and Chery. Viewing from the sales data of last year, the SUVs with the emissions of 2.0L-and-below takes the largest proportion with the sales volume of 213,400 sets, occupying 47.67 percent of SUV's total sales volume; 2.0L-to-2.5L series rank second with the sales volume of 180,900 sets, occupying 40.41 percent of SUV's total sales volume; 2.5L-and-above type takes a small proportion with the sales volume of 53,400 sets, occupying 11.93 percent of SUV's total sales volume and only as a supplement of SUV's segmented market. The sales achievements of this year has also demonstrated that the most popular auto types in the market are those priced below RMB300,000 yuan with the emissions of 2.5L-and-below.

High oil consumption and relatively simplified facilities are intrinsic defects of SUV types, but modern SUV has applied the configuration of cars on itself as much as possible, and tried to realize oil saving on the premise of guaranteeing its driving performance, which, therefore, has made the consumer groups of SUV expanded increasingly. The emission volume of Suzuki's Jimny and Great Wall's mini SUV even have realized as low as around 1.3L, which has widened the space of SUV market. It can be expected that if the price of SUV can lower to around RMB200,000 yuan at large, and the performance and configuration can compare favorably with cars and off-road vehicles, the SUV market will have a broader development future.