China likely to sell 9.6 mln vehicles in 2009

Shanghai, December 2 (Gasgoo.com) China's state information center has recently announced its projection of the country's auto sales for this year, saying that the sales will hit an estimated 9.6 million units, a considerable drop from the industry forecast made at the beginning of the year.

Industry experts previously forecasted that China would sell 10.23 million vehicles in 2008, but when the year is drawing to an end, the 10 million mark is still far away and the possible sales volume will stop at 9.6 million at most by the end of the year. This wide gas is blamed mostly on the devastating May 12 earthquake in western China, the traffic controls during the Olympic Games in August and the financial crisis in recent months.

Of the estimated 9.6 million vehicles sold by Chinese automakers this year, 9.2 million units are sold domestically, an appreciable rise from the 8.42 million units of last year. Compared with the sharp downturn in the North American market, China's auto market has achieved "hard-gained" growth this year, said industry analysts.

With the global financial crisis still prevailing world wide, China's auto market holds little prospects for optimism. Although auto sales in China began to see a small rebound last month, the economic climate has not recovered from the slump and prospective buyers will not loosen the purse strings soon.

Many automakers in China have scaled down their sales targets for this year. Last week, Brilliance Auto decided to cut its 2009 sales target to 300,000 units from 330,000 and Beijing Hyundai reduced its sales target to 320,000 units from the previous 380,000-unit goal. But Honda and Nissan are zeroing in on their China sales targets.