Cars drive along a main road in central Beijing January 12, 2012. Car sales in China climbed 5.2 percent in 2011, the slowest pace since the nation's car culture took off at the turn of the century, as consumers shunned local brands after Beijing scrapped tax incentives for small cars. [Photo/Agencies]

Luxury brands, GM, VW shine

General Motors remained China's top seller for the year, with a tally of 2.55 million vehicles, up 8.3 percent. Its mini-van venture in southern China accounts for around 47 percent of the total.

Volkswagen AG sold 2.25 million Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda cars in Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, up 17.2 percent from a year earlier.

Nissan Motor followed suit with an annual tally of 1.25 million in China, up 21.9 percent.

German luxury carmakers are also patting themselves on the back thanks to China's growing ranks of its moneyed class.

While BYD and other local nameplates had to resort to aggressive price cuts to drive sales, buyers of BMW , Audi and Mercedes-Benz brands are placing orders weeks or even months in advance for imported fancy sports cars or SUVs with price tags well over 1 million yuan (about $159,000).

Audi, the largest luxury brand in the country, sold 313,036 cars, up 37 percent. Smaller rival Volvo Car, owned by Geely, moved 47,140 cars, up 54.4 percent.

"The upscale segments were little affected by the overall market slowdown. There are so many rich people in China, not just in Beijing or Shanghai, but in smaller, inland cities as well," said Jenny Gu, a manager at industry consultancy LMC Automotive Asia Pacific.

Honda Motor, Toyota Motor and Mazda Motor, battered by the devastating March earthquake and floods in Thailand, however, all ended the year with a decline in sales.

Geely Automotive Holdings also struggled, with annual deliveries at 421,385 cars, far short of its target of 480,000. Warren Buffett-backed BYD sold 448,484 cars in China, down 13.7 percent year-on-year.

Major state auto groups SAIC Motor and Dongfeng Motor Group Co both reported double-digit sales gains for the year, thanks to brisk sales of foreign cars made at their joint ventures.

SAIC operates car ventures with GM and VW, while Dongfeng counts Nissan among others as its partners.