China’s PV market posts sales downturn for two straight years

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- In 2019, automakers in China sold a total of 21,469,065 locally-produced PVs (referring to cars, MPVs, SUVs and minibuses), a decrease of 9.3% over the previous year, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). This was the second year in a row for China posting downturn in PV sales.

The car, the MPV and the minibus sectors all suffered double-digit decline in full-year wholesale volume. Besides, SUV sales also fell 5.6% from the previous year.

The CPCA reported that PV wholesale volume in December edged down 1.3% year on year to 2,201,882 units. To be specific, the sales of MPVs and minibuses dropped 15.2% and 13.6% respectively, while their decrease was largely counteracted by the stable performance of car and SUV sales.

Meanwhile, compared with November, China's PV market boasted an evident growth of 6.6% with all of four sectors achieving increase.

There were 21,036,953 consumers taking delivery of China's homegrown PVs last year, down by 7.5% over a year earlier. The association said the Dec. PV deliveries still performed weaker than expected as the period ahead of the Spring Festival was supposed to have a sales rebound. Consumers’ confidence and enthusiasm were somewhat curbed by elements such as high pork price, the increased expenditures on education and health care and the continuously growing property sales in central and western regions in China.

Some changes occurred last month in terms of the landscape of China's automakers by PV wholesale volume. Chery Automobile cracked the top 10 for the first time in 2019. Beijing Hyundai returned to the top 10 list, ranked seventh. Compared to November, the rankings of Dongfeng Nissan and Changan Automobile remained unchanged, and both Geely Auto and Great Wall Motor dropped two places to the fifth and the ninth. Moreover, SAIC Volkswagen outsold FAW-Volkswagen in December and became the only automaker whose Dec. PV sales exceeded 200,000 units.

Certainly, the results of the top 10 automakers by 2019 PV wholesale volume came out as well. Volkswagen's two China-based joint ventures no doubt occupied the No.1 and No. 2 places. Honda's two joint ventures were ranked ninth and tenth. Geely Auto, Great Wall Motor and Changan Automobile were the only three China's self-owned auto manufacturers, ranked fourth, seventh and eighth respectively.