Holiday doesn't dent car sales

A man takes a picture of his son in front of an Audi S6 car during an international automobile exhibition in Shanghai. CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS

Although the Lunar New Year holiday essentially shut down business for a week in February, domestic passenger vehicle sales still grew 18 percent year-on-year, exceeding industry expectations.

Excluding commercial vehicles, sales totaled 1,312,200, including cars, sport utility vehicles, multipurpose vehicles and minivans, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said on Monday.

Combined sales in the first two months were up 11.3 percent to 3,159,000.

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February "was such a short month, with fewer working days. The sustained high growth indicates strong demand", said Rao Da, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association.

"The continuous growth potential of the automobile market, a key metric for the domestic economy, also indicates that China's GDP will maintain stable growth this year."

China produced 1,338,800 passenger vehicles in February, up 21.2 percent.

"It's logical for automakers to increase their output, because strong sales in December and January greatly reduced their inventories," said Rao.

He estimated sales this month will expand more than 10 percent.

"Automakers and dealers will launch promotions to spur sales so that they report a nice first-quarter balance sheet."

In February, commercial vehicle sales increased 17 percent to 284,200 units, taking total vehicle sales in the world's largest market up 17.8 percent to 1,596,400 units.

Combined vehicle sales (including commercial vehicles) in the first two months increased 10.7 percent to 3,752,900.

CAAM data also showed that in February, Chinese vehicle brands continued to see their market share decline, losing a further 0.02 of a percentage point from January and 4.6 percentage points from a year earlier.

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