China's auto sales reach same-month record high in July 2022

Beijing (Gasgoo)- In July, China’s passenger vehicle consumer demands continued to be stimulated by a slew of government policies and campaigns to boost vehicle consumption. Meanwhile, new energy vehicle (NEV) sales still maintained its rapid growth speed in China, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

In July, the country produced and sold 2.455 million vehicles and 2.42 million vehicles, respectively, representing a year-over-year jump of 31.5% and 29.7% each. Although the numbers came in lower than that of a month ago, but they still reached record high compared to the corresponding month in history. The CAAM is optimistic about the industry’s future as the growth may carry on.

In the first seven months of 2022, there were 14.571 million vehicles produced in the country, edging up 0.8% year over year, but the year-to-date vehicle sales volume notched down 2% from a year ago to 14.477 million units.

In the past month, China’s automobile export volume refreshed its record again after June. There were around 290,000 vehicles shipped overseas by automakers in China, including 242,000 passenger vehicles, which represented an increase of 22% over the previous month and 73.1% over the previous year.

Of the vehicles shipped abroad in July, 54,000 units were NEVs, soaring 89.9% month on month while jumping 37.6% year over year.

China’s cumulative automobile export volume in the past seven months summed up to 1.509 million vehicles, zooming up 50.6% from a year ago. The CAAM commented that the number lined up with its expectations, which made it possible to achieve an annual export target of 2.4 million vehicles in 2022.  

With 2.174 million vehicles sold, China’s passenger vehicle market saw a year-on-year sales growth of 40% in July but a 2.1% drop from a month ago. Comparing to the same month of 2021, sales of traditional oil-fueled vehicles significantly grew by over 200,000 units. The CAAM partly credited the growth to the governmental car-purchasing incentives.   

In the first seven months of the year, automakers in China sold a total of 12.529 million passenger vehicles, hiking up 8.3% from the year-ago period. 

Notably, China’s indigenous brands sold 1.078 million passenger vehicles, accounting for 49.6% of the total monthly passenger vehicle sales in China, up 3.4 percentage points year on year.

In the first seven months of 2022, cumulative sales of China-branded passenger vehicles summed up to 5.969 million units, up 21.5% from the year-ago period.

On the other hand, without evident stimulus to boost consumption, China’s commercial vehicle sales remained in a relatively low level in July. Nonetheless, with 246,000 vehicles sold, the local commercial vehicle market still saw its decline narrow month over month by 15.9 percentage points.

In the past seven months, there were 1.948 million commercial vehicles sold in China, dropping 39.3% compare to 2021.

As to the NEV segment, there were 593,000 NEVs sold in July domestically, soaring 120% from a year earlier. In the first seven months of 2022, NEV sales in China reached 3.194 million units, 1.2 times higher than a year ago.

The association concluded that the positive impact of governmental incentives would still boost China’s auto market for a while. The association expects to see a stably growing market performance in August. The monthly results of passenger vehicle sales, NEV sales, and export volume will maintain their robust growth, especially with September, the traditional high season for car shopping, coming next.