Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

China's auto sales post first single-digit growth since 1999

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-01-12 15:24

Chinese plants report a 6.7 percent rise of auto sales in 2008 compared with the previous year, the first non-double digit growth since 1999, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

The growth rate was 21.84 percent in 2007.

The sales totaled 9.38 million units in 2008, the CAAM said.

The sales figure released by CAAM included the country's auto exports, but did not cover sales of imported cars on the domestic market.

The country's automakers rolled out a total of 9.34 million motor vehicles last year, up 5.21 percent compared with 2007.

Both auto sales and production, however, were below the prediction of 10 million units made at the beginning of 2008.

Sales of passenger cars, including sedans, multipurpose vehicles and sport-utility vehicles, reached 6.76 million units in 2008, up 7.27 percent year-on-year, according to the CAAM. The increase was 14.41 percentage points lower than 2007.

Sedan sales topped 5 million units in 2008, up 6.78 percent year-on-year, with the FAW Volkswagen, Shanghai Volkswagen and Shanghai General Motors being the top three best sellers.

In December 2008, passenger car sales fell 7.99 percent year-on-year to 584,600 units. The figure, however, represented a month-on-month increase of 11.81 percent.

The December figure for sedan sales was 452,400 units, down 6.89 percent from a year ago. Multipurpose vehicles saw sales decreasing 36.89 percent annually to 13,900 units but sport-utility vehicles sales was up 5.7 percent to 40,600 units.