November home made passenger car sales up 11.9% year on year

China Economic Net - According to statistics published by China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) on 10 this month, from January to November this year, 17.4829 million units of vehicles were produced and 17.4932 million units of vehicles were sold in China, up 4.5 percent and 4.0 percent respectively year on year, with both production and sales in the whole year expected to exceed 19 million units.

"Production and sales of automobiles in November mark the second highest level since the beginning of the year. This indicates that overall production and sales of the automobile industry in November have been stable", said Dong Yang, standing vice chairperson and secretary general of CAAM.

Of that, production and sales of commercial vehicles continue to go back up. In November, commercial vehicles achieved production and sales of 329,400 units and 329,700 units respectively, both increasing by 7.4 percent month on month and by 2.7 percent and 5.6 percent respectively over the same period of last year. "In November, demand in the commercial vehicle market continued to go back up, and both production and sales have grown to various extents compared with the same period of last year, with aggregated production and sales growth rate continuing to narrow down", said Yao Jie, vice secretary general of CAAM, who believes that the main reason for that is that the growth stabilizing policy adopted by the government since September is taking effect, helping to propel commercial vehicles out of recession.

The good news is that, in November, the passenger vehicle market of homegrown brands performed excellently. In November, 638,600 units of homegrown passenger vehicles were sold, up 9 percent month on month and up 11.9 percent over the same period of last year, accounting for 43.7 percent of total sales of passenger vehicles, 1.4 percentage points lower than that of the previous month and 1.2 percentage points higher than that in the same period of last year.

Some point out that the gradual recovery of homegrown passenger vehicles has something to do with the chilled reception of Japanese cars. According to Jia Xinguang, an automobile analyst, the Diaoyu Island incident is only one of the reasons why sales of Japanese cars have slipped; a more important reason is that Chinese car companies have carried out development strategic reform in recent years, shifting their strategic competitiveness from low price and low quality to higher technology content and higher quality. For example, Great Wall Haval has secured the No.1 position in the SUV market for a long time, and, among similar SUV models, Haval has high performance-cost ratio and enjoys favorable brand awareness. From January to November this year, with 249,800 units sold, Great Wall Haval claimed the championship in the market, far ahead of the runner-up Tiguan. Sales of Geely's three brands, namely Emgrand, Englon, and Geagle, in November were 16,947 units, 14,323 units, and 20,012 units respectively. From January to November this year, Geely has sold a total of 423,829 vehicles, an increase of 13 percent compared with the same period of last year.

According to statistics, China's automobile export in November maintained strong development momentum. The number of exported cars reached 91,700 units, up 5.8 percent over the previous month and up 22.9 percent over the same period of last year. From January to November, China exported a total of 964,700 cars, an increase of 27.2 percent compared with the same period of last year.

"Due to car purchase restriction, higher financing cost, and increased labor cost, the downward pressure of the economy still exists, and there are still numerous uncertainties in the development of the auto industry". Despite that, Yao Jie suggests that, basing on past experience, there tend to be an end-of-year surge in the market, therefore, it is certain that production and sales of automobile in the whole year will achieve positive growth, and a growth of 5 percent over the same period of last year can be expected, with production and sales both exceeding 19 million units.