China passenger car sales up 4 percent in November

Passenger car sales rose 4 percent year on year in November on high year-end sales, a report by the China Passenger Car Association released on Friday showed.

But sales for the first 11 months of the year were well below expectations.

Sales reached 2.47 million units in November, a 10 percent jump on a month earlier, reflecting an annual seasonal spike. Sales in the year to November rose 2.3 percent on the same period last year, well below expectations, the association said.

Sports utility vehicles remain the star — rising 16.5 percent to 8.8 million units in the first 11 months. Sedan sales fell 3.6 percent to 10.3 million  and multipurpose vehicles dropped 18.1 percent to 1.79 million.

The association said Friday's data showed that promotion of e-commerce had very little impact on car sales in November.

Passenger car sales increased slightly during the first and third weeks of November. The growth was  lifted by sales generated in the last week of the month.

German and Japanese brands performed strongly in November. Sales of Chinese brands, led by Geely and Great Wall SUVs, increased four percent.

The association forecasts annual growth of four percent next year, up from an expected two percent for calendar 2017.

"We hold a relatively optimistic outlook on sales growth in the passenger car market in 2018," the association said in the report. "We currently estimate that passenger car sales will grow 10 percent in the first two months of next year."