China's homegrown vehicles increased their market share by four percentage points to 26 percent last month even as price cuts by overseas joint ventures brought increased competition.

Domestic car makers delivered 111,100 self-branded vehicles in September, compared with total sales of 425,900 by all car markers across the country, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported yesterday.

Market share for the domestic firms rose from 22 percent in August, when 83,400 units bearing Chinese nameplates were sold against the joint ventures in China.

The unexpected growth came after a handful of overseas car makers, including South Korea's Hyundai Motor Corp, Japan's Honda Motor and PSA Peugeot-Citroen, announced discounts on mainstream models last month to address the price advantage of Chinese-branded cars.

Against the reductions, the brisk sales of Chinese-brand models indicated they remained price competitive.

"Sales of BYD, Brilliance and Haima turned around with the arrival of the prime sales season," said Li Chunbo, an auto analyst at Citic Securities Co Ltd.

"Growth will be sustainable because the company is optimizing its sales network, extending its product portfolio and building a better brand image with higher quality - all of which helped to attract price-sensitive consumers."

Chery Automobile Corp's QQ subcompact, First Automotive Works Co Ltd's Xiali economy car and Chery's Flagwind sedan were the top selling Chinese-branded models, the industry organization said.

The 10 best-selling Chinese-branded cars also included Geely's Free Cruiser, Haima's Family, the Brilliance Junjie and BYD's F3 sedans. They made up 76 percent, or 84,800 units, of the total sold in this category last month.

Overall, China's passenger car sales, which also included sport-utility and multi-purpose vehicles, rose 22.4 percent in September to 561,000 units, the CAAM said in the report.

In the first nine months of the year, car sales in the world's second-largest vehicle market jumped 23.8 percent to 4.58 million units.

(Shanghai Daily October 16, 2007)