(Yicai) Sept. 9 -- China's Guangzhou Automobile Group said sales tumbled nearly 25 percent last month from a year earlier, down for the eighth straight month, mainly due to falling sales at its joint ventures with Honda Motor and Toyota Motor.

GAC sold 148,200 cars in August, the automaker announced on Sept. 6. Its sales fell 26 percent to around 1.2 million units in the eight months ended Aug. 31, with GAC Honda Automobile and GAC Toyota Motor accounting for 60 percent of the total, while its new energy vehicle arm GAC Aion and the Trumpchi brand made up 37 percent.

GAC aims to increase sales by 10 percent this year from the prior one and sell between 1 million and 1.1 million Aion and Trumpchi vehicles, it announced earlier. However, it has sold less than 430,000 such autos in the first eight months.

Sales of China-Japan auto JVs have dropped in recent years. About 440,000 units from leading JV brands were sold in China in July, down 25 percent from a year ago and 8 percent from June, with the share of China-Japan JVs down 3 percentage points to 12.9 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association,

GAC's net profit plunged 49 percent to CNY1.5 billion (USD210.8 million) in the first half of the year from a year ago because of the price war in the auto market and increased rivalry, according to the firm's latest financial report. Its revenue fell 26 percent to CNY45.8 billion (USD6.4 billion).

GAC Toyota will expand its electric car lineup, while GAC Honda's new energy vehicle factory will likely become operational this year, it said in the report.

GAC will also advance the development and mass production of the overseas editions of six models, it noted, adding that it also aims to add more than 100 new overseas distribution channels in the second half.

Editors: Shi Yi, Martin Kadiev