Sales drop confronting China’s PV market continues in October

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Last month, China's automaker sold a total of 1,928,673 locally-produced PVs (referring to cars, MPVs, SUVs and minibuses), failing to achieve year-on-year increase during the period which is conventionally regarded as a peak season for car sale, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

However, the latest wholesale volume remained flat compared with the previous month. In September, an earlier peak season, automakers in this country sold 1,929,167 homegrown PVs in total.

The year-over-year decrease resulted from the sliding performance of cars, MPVs and minibuses. Nevertheless, SUV sales slightly rose 0.9% from a year ago to 882,664 units thanks to the frequent roll-out of joint-venture SUV models and their outstanding sales. 

Some changes happened to the ranking of the top 10 automakers by Oct. wholesale volume of China-built PVs. The first three places were still occupied by the FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM with their rankings remaining unchanged from a month earlier. Geely Auto outsold Dongfeng Nissan, moving one place up to the fourth.

Besides, Changan Automobile climbed two places to the eighth, while both two joint ventures of Honda dropped one place. Compared with September, there was no new entrant on the Oct. list.

Year-to-date wholesales volume totaled 17,199,056 units, dropping 10.8% over the prior-year period.

As for the performance of terminal market, 1,868,276 consumers took delivery of China-made PVs last month, falling 6% from the year-ago period, while growing 3.4% over the previous month.

Insufficient consumption demand was the major factor leading to the car retail sales downturn, according to the CPCA. Consumers’ ability and interest to buy cars and their confidence over the market climate were somewhat whittled down by reasons such as intensified downward trend in export, the hike in pork price and the stronger-than-expected sale of property.