Abstract
Starting from the Lax pairs, the nonlocal symmetries of the coupled variable-coefficient Newell-Whitehead system are obtained. By introducing an appropriate auxiliary dependent variable, the nonlocal symmetries are localized to Lie point symmetries and the coupled variable-coefficient Newell-Whitehead system is extended to an enlarged system with the auxiliary variable. Then the finite symmetry transformation for the prolonged system is found by solving the initial-value problems. Furthermore, by applying symmetry reduction method to the enlarged system, two kinds of the group invariant solutions are given.