With production and wholesale both surpassing two million units, China’s automotive market showed a strong upward trend in November, making great contributions to steady economic growth, which could be ascribed to automakers’ sprinting for their twelfth “five-years” plan as well as government policies.
In November, the sales of passenger vehicles reached 2.12 million units, increasing by 25% from a year earlier, a record high growth because of the low base which resulted from that automakers who actively reduced their wholesales at the end of last year pushed for good sales instead this year.
The production of passenger vehicles also hit a record 2.14 million in November with a year-on-year rise of 22%. And that the premium SUV took up a larger market share even boosted the growth of GDP.
The retail of passenger vehicles reached 1.95 million units, achieving a year-on-year growth of 18%. But since the good performance of retail was strongly related to the dramatic growth of wholesale, the response of market seemed week.
That this winter turns out to be rainy and snowy in China also helped the retail gain its stable growth in November to some extents. It’s worth noting that the murky smog has an enormous impact on people’s walking, resulting in a rise of car purchase. On the other hand, auto shows brought about by e-commerce attracted more customers and improved the retail.
Earlier this year, the sales profits of automakers were not so ideal, especially that of joint ventures which only made a profit of 150 billion and suffered a decline of 15% in the first ten months. This was because the vast majority of automakers chose to sacrifice profits to achieve sales. And the price still showed a slight downward trend in November arising from the strategy of further boosting sales.
The wholesale of cars increased by 8% in November, while its retail declined; both the wholesale and retail of MPV grew slightly; on the contrary, SUV gained a considerable growth of 70%.
The implementation of preferential policy halving the purchase tax scored great successes. The market share of passenger vehicles with an emission below 1.6 liters reached 65.6% with a slight monthly rise of 0.5% in November. Among them, the market share of cars with an emission below 1.6 liters went up to 79% this November from 76% of last November. And the sales of cars with an emission below 1.6 liters rose by 13% from a year earlier, while that of cars with an emission above 1.6 liters declined by 5%.
Domestic brands in China also spared no effort to increase sales in November. Its wholesale reached 39.1% with a slim year-on-year rise of 1.4%, and the retail got to 39.9%, increasing by 3.2%.
With the production of 2.14 million units, the retail of 1.95 million units and the export of 20,000 units, automakers gained a rarely low net increase of 178,000 units in inventory in November, conducive to the steady economic growth. Dealers face a lower risk of inventory at the end of this year. So long as the upgrading of regional emissions does not cause any accident, good sales before the Spring Festival may be able to smoothly digest most of inventory.
