Passenger automobile sales in China grow over 10% in August

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai September 10) - A total of 1.15 million passenger automobiles were sold in China last month, China Business News reported today, citing the latest statistics from the China Passenger Car Association. The figure is 11.6 percent higher than the 1.03 million sales reported in July and 11.2 percent higher than last August's 1.04 million sales.

Meanwhile, Ford, GM and other multinational manufacturers have also announced their Chinese sales performance figures for August. Their growth figures are not far from industry averages, with GM's sales increasing 10.8 percent in July and 7.3 percent from last August. Ford, thanks in part to its new Focus, managed to achieve amazing year-on-year growth of 39 percent during the month.

China's largest domestic automobile enterprise, SAIC Group, also performed strongly. The manufacturer sold a total of 358,000 vehicles in August, 11.7 percent more than it sold the previous month and 9.2 percent more than it sold last year. Yu Te, an automotive analyst with Minsheng Securities, predicts that growth in the industry will noticeably increase over the fourth quarter, with the overall growth rate for the year around 11.9 percent.

However, CPCA General Secretary Rao Da cautions that next month's year-on-year growth figures may not be too high due to how strong sales were last September as buyers rushed to get favorable deals on vehicles marked to have their subsidies eliminated. That said, he also points out that no highway tolls during the holiday, an end to decreasing gas prices and positive GDP growth will all help stimulate new car sales during the month.