China's automobile sales drop sharply in September

China's automobile sales witnessed sharpest monthly decline in the past seven years in September, The Paper reported on Tuesday.

China's automobile sales dropped 11.6 percent year-on-year to 2.39 million in September and the cumulative sales from January to September were 16.18 million with just 0.6 percent increase year-on-year, according to data from China Association of Automobile Manufactures.

Statistics show domestic automobile industry experienced 4.0 percent year-on-year negative growth in July, continued to decline 3.8 percent year-on-year in August and posted the double-digit fall in September.

All the top 10 automobile companies saw sales slump in September, except Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, the only company whose sales increased 14.3 percent to 122,114.

Sales of FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM, the top three automobile companies with a combined 27.3 percent market share in China, fell 5.4 percent, 8.6 percent and 18.4 percent, respectively, on a yearly basis in September.

The sales of Shanghai General Motors Wuling dropped the most to 98,688 from 130,564 by 24.4 percent year-on-year this September.

Automobile industry has witnessed continuous growth in 26 consecutive years since 1992 and the last sharpest monthly drop occurred in January 2012 with 26.4 percent decline.