China: Second-hand vehicle sales rise 14% in H1

Based on the statistics by China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA), in the first half year, the trading volume of second-hand vehicle in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities was 1.7133 million units, up 14.06 percent year on year; the accumulative turnover of second-hand vehicle trading was 77.186 billion yuan, rising by 11.27 percent year on year. Generally, the market has been steady in the past six months.
 
From the second-hand vehicle trading in the first half year, it can be found that the market went through its valley and peak respectively in February and March, and then gradually went into a steady status with small increase.

According to Luo Lei, Vice Secretary General of CADA, such market performance not only was bound up with macro-economic situation, but closely attached to the current development of new vehicle market. It was calculated by CADA that national accumulative sales of automobiles in the first half year was 9.0163 million with a year-on-year rise of 47.67 percent. The increase in new car purchase and the fall in price level had their impacts on second-hand vehicle trading. Besides, the wait-to-buy-with-money-in-hand also affected the second-hand vehicle market.

In terms of vehicle model, the trading volume of basic passenger car (sedan) was 920.9 thousand, up 21.80 percent year on year and the trading amount was 45.403 billion yuan; for passenger cars, the numbers were respectively 274.1 thousand, 3.37 percent and 10.229 billion yuan; for cargo truck, 286.4 thousand, 6.33 percent and 9.541 billion yuan; for off-road vehicle, 28.1 thousand, 11.79 percent and 4.335 billion yuan.

Compared with that of the first half year of 2009, the top three in sales volume still were cars, cargo truck and passenger cars with the shares being 53.75 percent, 16.72 percent and 16.00 percent respectively. However, the shares of second-hand coaches, cargo trucks and cross passenger cars have fallen by 1.65 percent, 1.21 percent and 0.18 percent respectively on a year-on-year basis. In the first half year, the trading amount of second-hand cars increased at a high speed and the shares of second-hand cars bounced up by 3.41 percentage points from the same period of last year.

In the first half of this year, the volume of private purchase took up 85.62 percent of the total volume of second-hand vehicle trading, up 1 percentage point year on year and the private car purchase contributed 56.11 percent thereinto. Registration of regions transferring had an obvious decrease accounting for 11.82 percent of the total volume, down 2.32 percentage points year on year.

China-made vehicles dominated the second-hand market as usual with the trading volume being 1.6419 million in the first half year and accounting for 95.83 percent of the total volume. In terms of vehicle age distribution, the age of second-hand vehicle in the market was mainly three to ten years old and the accumulative trading volume of these vehicles was 1.2688 million accounting for 74.06 percent of the total volume, down 3.34 percentage points from the same period of last year. Nevertheless, the shares of old vehicles of more than ten years old witnessed an increase of 2.33 percentage points.

The top 10 provinces/municipals in the second-hand vehicle trading in the first half year were Guangdong, Sichuan, Shandong, Beijing, Shanghai, Henan, Zhejiang, Liaoning, Shaanxi and Chongqing. Compared with the trading volume of the same period of last year, the first two provinces enjoying fastest increase were Liaoning (61.93 percent) and Shaanxi (26.97 percent) respectively.

According to Luo Lei, in terms of region, the second-hand vehicle trading was similar to that in new vehicle market; the absolute trading volume in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, etc. was still growing and took up fairly large shares in the total sales but the increase rate has slowed down; in the first half year, second or three-class market, in particular the Northeast China, showed an obviously accelerated increase.

In the past two years, the trading mean price has witnessed continuous increases, whereas, for this first half year, it has been a converse tendency, that is, the mean price for second-hand vehicle trading is 45.1 thousand yuan, down 1,100 yuan year on year.

Specifically, on a year-on-year basis, the mean price for car trading is 49.3 thousand yuan, increasing by 1, 800 yuan; that for coaches is 37.3 thousand yuan, increasing by 3, 300 yuan; that for cargo trucks is 33.3 thousand yuan, decreasing by 15, 300 yuan; that for sports utility vehicle (SUV) is 154.3 thousand yuan, increasing by 24.5 thousand yuan.