On February 18, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported on the production and sales of automobiles in January. Overall, the production and sales of automobiles The production and sales situation of automobiles is generally stable, with a decline from the previous month and a slight increase year-on-year. Specifically, supported by the continued slight improvement in chip supply, coupled with the introduction of policies to encourage automobile consumption in some places, passenger cars performed better than the overall level, and production and sales continued a stable growth trend year-on-year. Commercial vehicle production and sales continued the downward trend month-on-month and year-on-year, and the year-on-year decline was more significant. The performance of new energy and automobile exports is still outstanding, and both maintain rapid growth year-on-year.
According to data released by the China Automobile Association, production and sales in January were 2.422 million units and 2.531 million units, down 16.7% and 9.2% month-on-month, respectively, and up 1.4% and 0.9% year-on-year, respectively.
Automobile production in January
Car sales in January
In the passenger car segment, production and sales in January were 2.077 million units, down 17.8% and 9.7% sequentially, and 17.8% and 9.7% year-on-year, respectively, respectively. In terms of models, in addition to the production and sales of MPV, the production and sales of the other three types of models have maintained year-on-year growth, of which cross-type passenger cars have shown rapid growth, and the growth rate of SUVs is higher than that of cars.
Passenger car sales have changed in the last three years
From the perspective of national car series, a total of 1.004 million Chinese brand passenger cars were sold in January, an increase of 15.9% year-on-year. In terms of market share, it increased by 3.7% year-on-year.
In the commercial vehicle segment, production and sales in January were 345,000 units, down 9.3% and 5.5% sequentially and 25.0% y/y, respectively. Judging by model situation, the production and sales of buses and trucks this month showed a year-on-year decline. Among them, the production and sales of trucks fell by 29.0% and 25.8% year-on-year, respectively, and the production and sales of buses fell by 14.9% and 15.8% respectively year-on-year.
In January, production and sales of new energy vehicles totaled 452,000 units and 431,000 units, up 1.3 times and 1.4 times year-on-year, respectively, continuing the trend of rapid development last year. From the perspective of subdivided energy types, the production and sales of pure electric vehicles were 367,000 and 346,000 units, respectively, the production and sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles were 85,000 units, an increase of 2.0 times year-on-year; and the production and sales of fuel cell vehicles were 142 units and 192 units, respectively.
Production of new energy vehicles in January
New energy sales in January
In terms of exports, vehicle exports in January were 231,000 units, up 3.8% month-on-month and 87.7% year-on-year. This month, automobile exports continued to continue to develop in a good way.
The market concentration of key enterprise groups is lower than that of the same period. In January, the top 10 auto sales group sold a total of 2.183 million units, down 1.0% year-on-year and accounting for 86.3% of total auto sales, 1.7 percentage points lower than the same period last year.
China Automobile Association believes. At present, in the face of multiple tests such as a complex and severe economic environment and the spread of the epidemic, the mainland's economy has continued to recover and develop as a whole. According to the production and operation activity expectation index released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the expected index of production and operation activities in the automobile industry in January was located in the high boom range of more than 60.0%, which played a role as a "ballast stone" for stabilizing industrial development.
For the future development of the automotive industry, the China Automobile Association believes that the development of the automobile market in the first quarter will be affected by both positive and negative aspects, of which positive factors include three points: first, local governments will actively introduce policies related to stable growth to support relatively stable market demand; second, the problem of insufficient supply of chips in the automotive industry is expected to continue to ease; third, some passenger car companies have good market expectations for 2022, and have set higher annual production targets, which will also play a certain supporting role in production and sales in the first quarter. Unfavorable factors also include three points: first, the shortage of chips in the first quarter still exists, and the industry in the first quarter of 2021 is not affected by chips, and the base is high; second, the domestic scattered epidemic has also increased the risk of the industrial chain and supply chain; third, the current policy dividend of commercial vehicles has been basically exhausted, the demand for the superimposed transportation market is insufficient, and the freight rate is low, so commercial vehicles will be in an adjustment period in the future. In summary, we should be cautious and optimistic about the future development of the market.