China's passenger car sales jumped 5.7% in March from a year earlier, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed on Tuesday, as automakers doubled down in a protracted price war to woo cautious customers in the world's largest auto market.

Sales totalled 1.71 million vehicles for the month. First-quarter sales were up 12.5% from the year earlier period at 4.88 million units. (Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Kirsten Donovan)