Shanghai, February 26 (Gasgoo.com) Last year China's private car ownership increased 34% year on year to 26 million units, Xinhua News reported yesterday, citing data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
China overtook the United States to become the world's largest auto market in 2009 with annual sales reaching 13.64 million units (with passenger cars at 10.3 mln units). Output reached 13.79 million units last year, making the country surpass Japan as the world's top auto producer.
In the first month of this year, China's auto sales and output both more than doubled from a year earlier to exceed 1.6 million units (including over 1.3 mln passenger cars), a new record, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said, predicting that full-year sales will top 15 million units.
The auto sales / purchase boom in China was mainly driven by policy incentives, including subsidies and tax cuts, rolled out by the Chinese government to boost its auto market demand. Another driving factor is the growing wealth of Chinese buyers.
The Chinese auto market has seen rapid growth over the past few years and its sales broke the 10-million-unit landmark last year. Private car ownership in the world's third-largest economy has risen more than 500% from 4.89 million units in 2003.
