Nio sold 9,829 units in March, higher than BMW's 3,123 units, Mercedes-Benz's 1,199 units and Audi's 116 units of BEVs in China, according to CATARC data.
Nio (NYSE: NIO, HKG: 9866) continues to be significantly ahead of the German luxury brands in the premium battery electric vehicle (BEV) market in China.
In China's high-end BEV market, which costs more than 300,000 yuan ($47,080), Tesla sold 39,353 units in March and remains dominant, according to China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC).
Nio's sales in March stood at 9,829 units, higher than BMW's 3,123 units, Mercedes-Benz's 1,199 units and Audi's 116 units, the data showed.
Notably, Nio alone sold more than twice the combined total of 4,438 units of BEVs these three German brands sold in China.
Nio continues to sit between Mercedes-Benz and BMW in average selling prices.
In terms of the average price of luxury car brands in China, Porsche ranked first with RMB 775,400, Land Rover ranked second with RMB 663,000 and Mercedes-Benz ranked third with RMB 428,600, Auto Time said today, citing data from automotive information platform WAYS.
Nio ranked fourth with RMB 426,300 and BMW ranked fifth with RMB 416,700, according to the report.
For the full year 2021, Nio sold more than 90,000 units in the high-end BEV market priced above RMB 300,000, with a 40.7 percent market share, the report said.
The key for Nio to continue to grab share from a market dominated by German luxury carmakers is a new product portfolio, the report said.
Deliveries of Nio's flagship sedan ET7 began on March 28. In addition to the 2022 facelift models of the ES8, ES6 and EC6 that will be released, Nio will deliver two other products based on the NT2.0 platform, the ET5 and ES7, in the third quarter, the report noted.
In an interview with CCTV in early February last year, William Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Nio, said that the company was targeting the market of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi and hoped to be one of the most dominant players in five years or more.
At least from the current point of view, Li's goal has started to be reached initially.
Nio released figures on April 1 showing it delivered 9,985 vehicles in March, up 37.6 percent year-on-year and up 63 percent from February.
Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, on the other hand, did not report sales of their BEV models in China.
According to a report by Tencent News on Thursday, 2.73 million pure electric passenger cars were sold in China in 2021, with Mercedes, BMW and Audi combining for only about 27,000 units, which is about the same as one quarter of sales for Nio or Xpeng Motors.
Some users choose luxury brand NEVs because of the luxury label, but judging from the sales figures, they have not been able to rely on the brand effect to attract the expected number of consumers, according to Tencent News.
