China’s auto export jumps 30% YoY in Jan. 2023 despite overall sales downturn

Beijing (Gasgoo)- In the first month of 2023, partly affected by the Chinese New Year holiday and superimposed on the withdrawal of traditional oil-fueled vehicle purchase tax incentives and new energy vehicle subsidies, China's automobile output and sales both encountered double-digit decline versus the earlier month and year.

Wherein, the production and sales of passenger cars fell significantly in January, while the statistics of commercial vehicles stayed at a low level. However, both the new energy vehicle sales and auto export volume kept a strong momentum.

According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), China produced a total of 1.594 million vehicles in January 2023, reflecting a more than 30% fall compared to the previous month and year, respectively. At the same time, China sold 1.649 million vehicles in the past month, again facing month-on-month and year-on-year declines of over 30%.

Due to the withdrawal of new energy vehicle subsidies, coupled with market price fluctuations, in January, China's new energy vehicle (NEV) sales reached 408,000 units, down 49.9% month-on-month and 6.3% year-on-year. Notably, in comparison to February 2022, the month last year’s Chinese Lunar New Year fell in, sales of NEVs in China actually jumped 22.2%. 

BYD Seal; photo credit: BYD

NEVs accounted for 24.7% of the country’s total auto sales last month. Among which, roughly 121,000 units were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, surging 42.5% year over year. 

Despite the overall slowdown, in January, automakers in China managed to ship 301,000 vehicles overseas, representing a 30.1% hike year-on-year. Among which, 250,000 units were passenger vehicles, leaping 35.6% over the previous year. With 83,000 units exported (+48.2% YoY), NEVs accounted for 27.57% of the total export volume in the past month.

China’s passenger vehicle sales amounted to 1.469 million units in January, plunging 35.2% over the previous month and 32.9% over the earlier year. Comparing to the same period of last year, monthly sales of conventional oil-fueled vehicles in China dropped 44.8% to 0.904 million units.  

Lynk & Co 01; photo credit: Lynk & Co

In January, with 758,000 units sold, Chinese indigenous passenger vehicle brands grasped 51.6% share of the local passenger vehicle market, which was 5.6 percentage points higher than that of a year ago. 

Among the new energy passenger vehicles sold in the past month, models priced in the 150,000 yuan-200,000 yuan range were the most popular in China, with a sales volume of 107,000 units, up 21.5% year-on-year. 

On the other hand, since commercial vehicle makers generally go back to work and production later than that of passenger vehicle makers around the Chinese New Year holiday period, and market demand of commercial vehicles still needs time to recover after the pandemic, production and sales of commercial vehicles in China have not yet seen significant improvement in January 2023, said the CAAM. 

In the first month of 2023, the country’s output and sales of commercial vehicles stood at 197,000 units and 180,000 units, respectively, plummeting 43.1% and 47.7% year on year.