Sales of Chinese passenger market in Oct

According to statistics released by Joint Advisory Committee of China Passenger Car Market (JACCPCM) on November 6, 2009, the number of production and sales of China's passenger cars in October 2009 were respectively 969,900 and 923,200 units (excluding imports and exports), up 86.6% and 79.6% compared with the same period of 2008. Additionally, the figures are 5.8% and 6.1% lower than the figures of last month. Impacted by National Day, the number of production and sales are lower compared with September but also ranked the second in the history. In terms of the sales’ trend of cars + MPV + SUV every year, sales number in November and December often better than that in September and October.

As can be seen from the chart “Situation of car sales from January to October”, car sales were in an explosive growth in the third quarter of 2009. During the third quarter the production could also determine the number of car sales. The production of cars more than sales was really good news because it is beneficial to relieve the shortage of inventory turnover. The number of working days in November is 4 days more than October, so the number of passenger car production in November will much higher than that in October but also maybe lower than September. Joint Advisory Committee of China Passenger Car Market predicted China’s whole year car production could reach around 13.5 million units in 2009.

In the passenger car market, sales number of cars, MPV, SUV and mini-buses all declined slightly compared with September but all climbed up compared with the same period of last year. Sales of mini-bus were stimulated by policies such as the half purchase tax concessions and the growth rate amounted to more than 120% compared with the same period of 2008. Economic development of China started to recover in recent months and therefore the sales of MPV for commercial function also grew at the speed of more than 50% for consecutive three months .

Constrained by production capacity SUV market ended it growth compared with September which has been in Ring growth from February to September. This was caused by the end of National Day and the SUV market can keep its Ring growth in the following months. Additionally, pushed by half purchase tax concessions in October car market has seen its second take-off, for the sales in November and December 2008 were limited thus car sales in November and December 2009 are likely to increase dramatically by more than 100% compared with the same period of last year.

The imported cars: According to China Automobile Trading Co., Ltd, from January to September 2009 passenger cars imported through customs reached 251,800 units, down 19% compared with the same period of last year. Meanwhile the number of licenses was 246,000 units and up 16.9 compared with the same period of last year.

Though the number of licensed imported passenger cars increased by 16.9% the growth rate was also slower than that in 2008.Impacted by the meltdown at the end of 2008, the number of passenger cars imported through customs declined sharply in the first half of 2009. At the same time the number of imported passenger cats is less than the imported licensed passenger cars .As a result the inventory level began to reduce. Among the imported passenger cars ,the number of SUV accounted for more than 50%,up gradually since January 2008.In September 2009,the proportion of SUV in the imported passenger cars was 55.1%.Sedan was 38% and MPV was just 6.9%.

Second-hand cars: According to China Automobile Dealers Association, in September 2009 the trading volume of second-hand cars (the total number of passenger cars + commercial cars) amounted to 323,400 units, up 16.24% compared with August 2009.Calculated from January to September, the total trading volume of second-hand cars was 2.3828 million, an increase of 28.44% compared with same period of last year. The amount of transactions reached 14.114 billion RMB, up 48.8% compared with the same period of last year and up 5.53% compared with August 2009.

In the total trading volume of second-hand cars from January to September 2009, domestic cars accounted for 96.21% .In addition, proportion of private cars were 85.14%, up 3.09% compared with the same period of last year .Among various models, the basic-type passenger cars amounted to 1.208 million units, an increase of 25.70% compared with same period of last year. Moreover, the amount of trading volume reached 58.671 billion RMB.(Translator: Qinghua Wade)

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