China November auto sales down 9.1% YoY

China’s vehicle sales in November achieved better results than expected, in spite of such challenges as automotive chip supply pressure and changes in regulations and policies, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said on Friday.

Data from the association showed that the country sold 2.522 million vehicles last month, up 8.1% month over month but down 9.1% year over year, 0.3 percentage points fewer than that of October. Compared with the same month of 2019, that represented an increase of 2.5%.

By the end of November, the total sales of the country amounted to 23.489 million units, up by 4.5% from a year ago, 1.9 percentage points fewer than that of Jan.-Oct. volume, and increasing 1.5% compared with the same period of 2019.

In terms of outputs, China made 2.585 million vehicles in November, up 10.9% month over month but down 9.3% year over year. The cumulative production volume of the first eleven months grew by 3.5% from a year ago to 23.172 million vehicles.

Sales and production volume of passenger vehicles in the country continued to drop year on year, but the growth of November sales over the same month of 2019 increased by 3.1 percentage points from October to 6.5%. By the year-to-date sales, Jan.-Nov. volume of this year fell 1% when compared with the same span of 2019.

Chinese vehicle brands sold 1.022 million passenger vehicles (PV) in November, up 7.2% versus the same month of last year. The local brands took up a market share of 46.6% last month, 5.2 percentage points more than that of November, 2020. The total PV sales from local brands jumped 25.1% year over year to 8.406 million in Jan.-Nov. period, accounting for a share of 44.1%, which was 6.4 percentage points more than the same span of last year.

Sales of locally-made luxury vehicles continued to increase. Last month, the market sold 319,000 China-made luxury vehicles, up by 3.5% year over year, 9.4 percentage points less than that of October. In the first eleven months of this year, the sales of locally-made luxury vehicles amounted to 3.112 million units, representing a year-on-year increase of 19.5%.

Sales and production decline of commercial vehicles widened to 31.9% and 30.3% year on year respectively while year-to-date sales decline of the segment grew 2.8 percentage points from Jan.-Oct. period to 5.3%. The association attributed the decline to the emission standard switch and the phasing out of previous favorable policies.

November marked another record high for new energy vehicle (NEV) sales and outputs. The country sold 450,000 NEVs in November, accounting for 17.8% of the overall monthly sales, higher than the previous months. In terms of PV, new energy powered PV had a share of 19.5% out of the overall PV market. In terms of year-to-date sales, NEV contributed 12.7% of the total sales.

In November, the market sold 147 fuel cell electric vehicles, 49.3% fewer from a year ago while the total sales of the segment stood at 1,000 units, jumping 16% year over year.

Automobile companies exported 200,000 vehicles to other countries, representing a month-on-month decrease of 13.6% and a year-on-year surge of 59%. Among those vehicles exported last month, 170,000 were passenger vehicles. NEVs contributed 32.9% to the monthly export volume.

As of November, the year-to-date export volume from China more than doubled from a year ago to 1.793 million vehicles, 1.427 million of which were passenger vehicles.