China’s Vehicle Inventory Alert Index drops 2.6 percentage points YoY in Jan. 2021

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- China's Vehicle Inventory Alert Index (VIA) stood at 60.1% in January 2021, which dropped 0.6 percentage points compared to the previous month and fell 2.6 percentage points over the previous year, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA). The VIA was still above the official warning threshold.

In January 2021, the car shopping demands evidently dropped as the forthcoming Spring Festival and the intensified prevention and control of coronavirus pandemic led to the decrease in dealer showroom traffic, said the CADA.

The association also noted some demands had been overdrawn in December 2020 because many incentive policies would be terminated by 2020, which somewhat spurred car consumption demands.

As for the performances by regions, the VIA of northern region reached 64.6% in January, rising 3.5 percentage points over a month earlier. The CADA said dealers in northern region faced heavy inventory pressure due to the occurrence of some confirmed cases leading that caused shrinking footfall for dealerships.

The northern region includes Beijing, Hebei, Henan, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi.

The VIA of imported & luxury auto brands and mainstream joint-venture brands stood at 56.4% and 59.4% in January, declining 4.1 and 1.6 percentage points from the previous month. Meanwhile, the index of China's self-owned brands slid 6.6 percentage points month on month to 61.1%.

The CADA expected China auto sales to further decrease this month as January and February are traditional off-season for car shopping and sporadic COVID-19 cases occur in some regions.