China's largest automakers rode a 73 percent jump in car sales in March from February, but first-quarter sales slid 7.7 percent from a year earlier as the world's third-largest vehicle market kept up its growth slowdown.

The carmakers in March sold 2.5 percent more passenger vehicles, including non-sedans, than a year earlier, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Thursday.

Those manufacturers, which included all major players, such as General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., moved 256,000 passenger cars last month.

In the first quarter, sales hit 574,300 units, a fall of almost 8 percent off a high base last year, the industry body said.

The five largest companies by sales in March were Shanghai GM, Honda Motor Co's Guangzhou unit, Hyundai Motor Co.'s Beijing venture, Toyota partner Tianjin FAW Xiali Automobile Ltd. and Shanghai Volkswagen, the main Chinese venture for German-based Volkswagen.

Car sales in China rose 15 percent last year after almost doubling in 2003, held back by government steps to cool the economy.

That triggered a new round of price wars, with Honda, Ford Motor Co. and BMW AG slashing prices in the first quarter.