Automobile sales in decline for 21st month

Auto sales in China dropped 43.3 percent to 1.43 million vehicles in March from a year earlier, the 21st consecutive monthly decline, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) on Friday.

The latest drop follows decreases of 79 percent in February and 18 percent in January in the world’s largest auto market.

Xu Haidong, CAAM’s deputy chief engineer, said: “If we only consider domestic factors, we believe the industry in the second half of the year should be able to recover to the level of the same period last year. But it is still difficult to make up for first-quarter and first-half losses.”

A total of 3.67 million vehicles were sold in the first three months of this year, a decline of 42.4 percent year on year. The market performance was attributed to weak consumer demand and macro-economic factors amid the COVID-19 pandemic with consumers taking a wait-and-see stance rather than buying cars during this period.

The association had predicted that Chinese auto sales were likely to fall more than 10 percent in the first half of this year and 5 percent for the whole year, marking a third consecutive year of contraction. Last year, sales fell 8.2 percent to 25.77 million vehicles.

CAAM said China's auto market is expected to recover significantly in the second quarter but it would be difficult to recover to the same level as the same period last year. 

With the release of government policies and auto companies’ efforts, the market may see growth in the second half of this year but that depended on the pandemic’s effect overseas.

In March, new-energy vehicle sales declined by 53.2 percent to 53,000 vehicles, a contraction for the ninth month in a row.

“With the effective control of the novel coronavirus pneumonia pandemic in China, the production and operation of automobile companies gradually resumed," CAAM said.

A survey of 23 auto groups in China showed that their manufacturing bases had a production resumption rate of 75 percent compared with the average production level last year and 86 percent of employees had returned to work.