CAAM: China’s auto sales, output hit year’s high in Nov

Sales and production of automobiles in China both reached new highs for the year in November, driven chiefly by the outstanding performance of new-energy vehicles (NEVs), mainly thanks to Beijing’s efforts to expand domestic consumption of these vehicles, according to the latest release by China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) on December 12.

In November, the uptrend in domestic auto sales continued, with the total increasing by 7.6% on month or 12.6% on year to 2.8 million units, the statistics showed, with sales of NEVs in the total growing by a substantial 24.1% on month or 104.9% on year to 200,000 units. November marked the seventh successive month that auto sales recorded an on-year rise.

Last month, China’s total auto production also rose by 11.5% on month or by 9.6% on year to 2.8 million units, and within the total, output of NEVs jumped 17.5% on month or 75.1% on year to 198,000 units.

“The revival of the domestic economic environment, coupled with the policies promoting consumption, will result in the market demand (for autos) further recovering,” CAAM stated in the release.

The market’s expectations for the auto industry for the longer term have also turned more positive. CAAM Secretary General Fu Bingfeng said at a conference on Friday that China’s auto sales may realize steady growth over the next five years, with auto sales reaching 30 million units by 2025.

But CAAM warned that the tight supplies of microchips, key hardware components for contemporary automobiles, might force domestic manufacturers to slow their pace of production.

Though the shortage of microchips will impact production in the first quarter next year, the effect on full-year production will be very limited, according to Li Shaohua, CAAM’s deputy secretary general.

Given the negative influence from the second wave of the pandemic sweeping across Europe and Southeast Asia, chip producers there lowered or even suspended production, resulting in the short supplies, Mysteel Global noted.

Over the first 11 months of 2020, China’s total auto sales amounted to 22.5 million units, down by a mere 2.9% on year, as against the 4.7% on-year drop over January-October, according to CAAM. In parallel, motor vehicle output declined 3% on year to 22.4 million units, with the declining pace slowing down too by 1.6 percentage points from the end of October.

Source: CAAM

Written by Anna Wu, wub@mysteel.com

This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.