BEIJING, May 13 -- Retail sales of Chinese-brand passenger vehicles logged robust expansion and gained a bigger market share in April, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed.

A total of 790,000 such vehicles were sold via retail channels in China last month, surging 63 percent year on year and increasing 1.5 percent from the previous month, according to the association.

The figure accounted for 48.2 percent of the total retail sales of China's passenger cars market in the period, up 1.7 percentage points from the same period of 2022, the data revealed.

Sales of domestic brands also increased in both the new energy vehicle and export markets, with auto makers BYD, Changan and Chery all reporting a notable rise in market share.