• Xpeng's monthly deliveries surpassed local counterpart Li Auto for the first time since September 2022.

• The Mona M03 once again delivered more than 15,000 units.

Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV) maintained strong deliveries in January, albeit down from December.

The electric vehicle (EV) maker delivered 30,350 units in January, its third straight month above the 30,000 mark, according to data it released today.

That's a 17.29 percent decrease from December's 36,695, while a 267.88 percent increase from 8,250 a year ago.

China's auto market is distinctly seasonal, with the beginning of the year, especially the month in which the Chinese New Year falls, usually being the low point for deliveries, while the end of the year is usually the high point.

The smaller decline allowed Xpeng's monthly deliveries to surpass those of local peer Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) for the first time since September 2022, according to data compiled by CnEVPost.

Figures released earlier today by Li Auto showed it delivered 29,927 vehicles in January, down 48.85 percent from December and down 3.97 percent year-on-year.

Xpeng currently offers only battery electric vehicles (BEVs), while Li Auto's sales come mainly from hybrid extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs).

Xpeng's new model, the Mona M03, delivered more than 15,000 units in January, the company said, without mentioning specific figures.

The company officially launched the Mona M03 on August 27, 2024, offering three variants with starting prices of RMB 119,800 ($16,520), RMB 129,800 and RMB 155,800 respectively.

The sedan is the least expensive of Xpeng's on-sale models, and is about half the price of Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA) Model 3 sedan.

Deliveries of the two lower-priced variants of the Mona M03 began at the end of August 2024, while deliveries of the highest-priced Max variant will begin in 2025 after the Chinese New Year holiday -- which runs from January 28 to February 4 in China.

The sedan delivered 15,904 vehicles in December, after monthly deliveries exceeded 10,000 units in each of September-November, according to data compiled by CnEVPost.

Xpeng's other hot-selling new model is the P7+, launched on November 7 last year. The mid-to-large-size electric sedan starts at RMB 186,800 and delivered 10,035 units in December.

The P7+ has accumulated 20,000 deliveries in just two months of its launch, the company said today.

The P7+ doesn't come with any LiDAR, marking the first time Xpeng has ditched the component after using it for the past several years, shifting its smart driving system to a Tesla-like vision-only solution.