China auto sales jump 25.7% YoY in September 2022

Beijing (Gasgoo)- In September, the slew of government policies and campaigns continued to drive China’s passenger vehicle consumer demands. In the third quarter of 2022, auto output and sales maintained a blooming momentum, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

In the past month, the country produced and sold 2.672 million vehicles and 2.61 million vehicles, respectively, representing a year-over-year jump of 28.1% and 25.7% each. In the first nine months of the year, there were 19.632 million vehicles produced in the country, growing 7.4% year over year. Meanwhile, China’s year-to-date vehicle sales volume climbed up 4.4% from a year ago to 19.47 million units. 

Photo credit: BYD

In September, there were 301,000 vehicles shipped overseas by automakers in China, including 250,000 passenger vehicles, which represented a 3.9% notch down over the previous month and an 85.6% hike over the previous year. Of the vehicles shipped abroad in the past month, 50,000 units were new energy vehicles (NEVs), down 40.3% month on month while more than doubling from a year ago.

China’s cumulative automobile export volume in the past nine months summed up to 2.117 million vehicles, zooming up 55.5% from a year ago. 

With 2.332 million vehicles sold, China’s passenger vehicle market saw a month-on-month sales growth of 9.7% and a year-on-year growth of 32.7% in September. Comparing to the same month of 2021, sales of traditional oil-fueled vehicles significantly grew by 12.2% to 1.453 million units. 

By the end of September, automakers in China sold a total of 16.986 million passenger vehicles this year, up 14.2% from the year-ago period. 

China’s indigenous brands sold 1.166 million passenger vehicles, accounting for 50% of the total monthly passenger vehicle sales in China, up 2.9 percentage points year on year. In the first nine months of 2022, the cumulative sales of China-branded passenger vehicles summed up to 8.163 million units, jumping 26.6% from the year-ago period.

Notably, there were 383,000 premium made-in-China passenger vehicles sold across the country in September, surging 48.5% from the same month in 2021. The high-end passenger vehicle segment outpaced that of the overall domestic passenger vehicle market.

On the other hand, China’s commercial vehicle sales amounted to 279,000 units in the past month, growing 7.9% from a month ago but down 12.5% year over year. Comparing to the previous month, the output and sales volumes of trucks and buses both saw an increase to different degrees. 

In the past nine months, there were 2.484 million commercial vehicles sold in China, dropping 34.2% compare to 2021. With external factors like the growing investment in infrastructure constructions, stable real-estate policies, and discounted highway toll rates, the CAAM expects a turnaround in China’s commercial vehicle market in the near future. 

As to the NEV segment, there were 708,000 NEVs sold in the past month domestically, indicating a 93.9% soar from a year earlier. In the first nine months of 2022, NEV sales in China reached 4.567 million units, which was 1.1 times higher than the year-ago level.