China auto sales down 12.4% in June

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Both China’s auto production and sales saw year-on-year decrease in June, and commercial vehicle sales had a larger decline than those of passenger vehicles, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). But sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) and auto export showed strong momentum with record-breaking volume.

In June, the biggest auto market sold 2.015 million vehicles, down 12.4% year on year, the association said on Friday. Compared with the same month of 2019, monthly sales in June also declined 2.2% while production volume saw an increase of 2.4%, 7.9 percentage points less than that of May.   

During the first half of this year, China sold 12.891 million vehicles and produced 12.569 million vehicles, up 4.4% and 3.4% when compared with the same period of 2019.

Even though the market was confronted with many challenges in the first half of this year, such as automotive chip shortage and price increase of raw material, the cumulative sales of passenger vehicles in the first six months still surpassed 10 million units, but saw a slight decrease of 1.4% versus the same period of 2019.

Chinese vehicle brands sold 691,000 passenger vehicles last month, representing a year-on-year increase of 16.5%. Their market share in June rose to 44%, the highest in this year and 10.5 percentage points more than that of June, 2020. In the first half of this year, sales of local brands jumped 46.8% from a year ago to 4.2 million vehicles while the market share was 42%.

Both NEV’s monthly sales and outputs soared to an all-time high. And sales of battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles reached a new-record volume with respective sales of 211,000 vehicles and 44,000 vehicles. Besides, the market also sold 272 fuel cell vehicles last month, 172 vehicles less than it produced.

For the first half of this year, NEV sales and outputs both surged to exceed 1.2 million vehicles while the segment’s sales had reached the same level as that of the whole year of 2019. During the period, the share of NEV sales rose from 5.4% at the beginning of this year to 9.4%, and the monthly share in June had already surpassed 12%.

Monthly export volume also achieved best-ever figures in June, thanks to the recovery of overseas markets and the enhanced competitiveness of Chinese brands. Chinese automakers shipped 158,000 vehicles to foreign markets in June, surging 150% from a year ago. NEV export accounted for 11.1%. In the first half of this year, the export volume reached 828,000 vehicles.

As chip shortage and rising material price will continue to affect the industry, the association remains to be cautiously optimistic about auto industry’s development. It expects annual sales to be 27 million vehicles with a year-on-year increase of 6.7% while NEV sales will reach 2.4 million vehicles.