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Auto sales edge past 6m in H1

By Li Fangfang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-10 09:03

A truck transports a load of cars in Jiangsu province. [CFP]

China's booming automobile industry is expected to sprint to the 12-million-unit threshold on the back of a sales surge during the first half of the year.

China sold 6.1 million vehicles in total in the first six months, a 17.69-percent increase over the previous year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said in a statement yesterday.

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Full year sales are now likely to comfortably breach the 10-million-unit barrier. China last year sold 9.38 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 6.7 percent over 2007 sales.

More impressive, the country has for four consecutive months sold more than a million vehicles in a single month, breaking the monthly sales record each month since March.

US auto sales plunged 35 percent in the first half to 4.8 million units, the slowest since 1982, according to Autodata Corp, a US marketing research firm. Average automobile sales in the US between 1999 and 2007 were 16.8 million units annually.

"China's passenger car segment, which got a stimulus due to the government's positive policies, has been the major power driving the whole vehicle market," said CAAM in the statement.

CAAM data showed that the passenger car segment contributed to the sales increase by 62.89 percent, as the government's tax reduction and subsidies spurred small car sales.

The strong market performance in the first half has made industry analysts double their growth rate forecast for 2009, from a pervious prediction of no more than 10 percent made during the beginning of the year...

 

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