China passes U.S. to be No.1 auto market in Jan

Shanghai, February 10 (Gasgoo.com) Largely due to the plunge in American car sales, China overtook the U.S. in monthly vehicle sales in January 2009 for the first time to be the world's No.1 auto market for the month, according to data released by China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) today, state media reported.

The Chinese auto industry association CAAM said Tuesday that 735,000 vehicles were sold in China in January. That surpasses the 656,976 vehicles sold in the U.S. the same month. If China can outpace the United States in sales for all of 2009, it will become the world's largest vehicle market.

China passed Japan to become the world's second-biggest auto market in 2006. As the world's most populous nation of more than 1.3 billion people, China is expected to climb to the top position inevitably in the global industry. The recent plunge in U.S. auto market seems to have accelerated China's ascent to this throne.

While car sales have also slowed in China, but less dramatically, amid the economic downturn, U.S. sales tumbled 37% in January to a 26-year low. In China, January vehicle sales fell 14.4% from the monthly record 860,000 units in January 2008, CAAM statistics show. January sales were 0.8% down from December, and below the 790,000 units anticipated by some analysts.

Last week, Mike DiGiovanni, General Motors Corp.'s executive director of global market and industry analysis, projected that Chinese auto sales could hit 10.7 million vehicles in 2009, more than his estimate of 9.8 million unit sales in the U.S. this year. Autodata Corp. forecasts 2009 U.S. sales at 9.57 million.

With its growing middle class and vast potential as a consumer market, China is vital for global automakers such as General Motors, Volkswagen and Toyota as they count on demand here to offset the auto sales slump in the U.S. and elsewhere.