China's auto sales climb 9.6 percent to nearly 2.3 million vehicles in May from a year ago

China's auto sales rose 9.6 percent to 2.29 million vehicles in May from a year ago amid rising consumer demand and a strong domestic macro-economic environment, an industry association said on Monday.

In the first five months of this year, total auto output added 3.8 percent to 11.76 million units year on year while sales climbed 5.7 percent from a year ago to 11.79 million units, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

The robust sales spurt is driven by increasing market demand, a stable economic environment as well as April's Beijing Auto Show which lured consumers to place orders for latest models.

“The overall sales performance of China's auto market was good for the January-May period. The strong growth rate is also boosted by relatively low sales figures during the same period last year," CAAM said.

Meanwhile, the sales and production of new-energy vehicles continued to grow rapidly. Some 96,000 new-energy vehicles were produced in May, up 85.6 percent from the same month last year, and 102,000 were sold, up 125.6 percent year on year.

In the first five months, sales of new-energy vehicles soared 141.6 percent to 328,000 units. From January to May, sales of electric vehicles surged 124.7 percent to 250,000 units from the same period last year. Sales of plug-in hybrids jumped 218.4 percent from a year earlier to 78,000 units.  

"New-energy vehicles grew robustly in May. The good sales momentum has continued since March this year. Sales of new-energy cars are powered by both rising demand and government subsidies," said Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association, another industry group.