China's passenger car sales top 1 mln units in Jan

Shanghai, February 4 (Gasgoo.com) China's passenger car sales in January may exceed 1 million units again, not impacted by a 25% roll-back of the sales tax on small cars, the National Passenger Car Information Exchange Association said yesterday, SinoCast reported.

About 42,000 vehicles were sold per day on average in the first three weeks of last month, and the daily average sales volume grew 41% from a week earlier to 59,000 in the last week.

Some automakers, including Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen, Changan Ford, Shanghai GM, achieved their record sales last month. The sales growths of Shanghai GM and Chery Auto even surpassed 200%, respectively.

Shanghai GM, as a joint venture between SAIC Motor and General Motors, sold 90,202 cars in January 2010, when Chery's total sales and exports separately hit 68,914 and 4,519 units.

Last year, China's passenger car sales jumped 52.9% to 10.3 million units, with Volkswagen (via its China ventures) retaining its position as the biggest seller at a record 1.4 million units (up 36.7%).

Sales in December 2009 alone jumped 88.7% from a year earlier to 1.1 million cars, topping 1 million units for monthly sales for the third time last year.