Follow the money: auto sales in China outstrip the U.S.

Auto sales for a group of emerging markets including China and Russia  are expected to pass the group of “mature” markets like North America, Japan and Western Europe for the first time this year, and then keep right on growing.

In terms of national markets, China already passed the United States in auto sales in 2009, but that’s in large part because U.S. auto sales fell so sharply. According to IHS Global Insight, the U.S. market is expected to pass China again for a while, then fall behind for good around 2015.

From 2009 to 2015, global auto sales are expected to grow about 50 percent, according to J.D. Power and Associates. That’s up from the recent trough of 64 million in 2009, to around 97 million in 2015.

Most of the growth in those years will be in emerging markets, according to Jeff Schuster, executive director, forecasting and analysis for J.D. Power. Schuster said at an auto industry conference hosted by J.D. Power and Standard & Poor’s this week that global auto sales should be up this year by about 11 percent, to 70.6 million.

India is expected to have the biggest percentage increase in auto sales in 2010, out of a group of global market including the United States, Brazil, Germany, Russia, Japan, China and India, J.D. Power said. Indian auto sales are on a pace to increase 29 percent to about 2.7 million, the firm said. Auto sales in China are expected to increase about 24 percent, to 16.2 million.

“China ‘slowed down’ to 8.7 percent (GDP) growth in 2009,” said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor’s. “I don’t think anybody would seriously call that a recession.”

He said China’s economy came through the global recession in better shape than most in part because its financial markets are not as tightly linked to other markets around the world. A centrally planned economy could also spend what it liked on economic stimulus, he said.

“The government told the banks (in China) to keep lending money, Wyss said. “And the banks did what the government told them to do.”