On March 11, the China Automobile Association held an information conference in Beijing to report on the economic operation of the automobile industry in February. According to the data, the national automobile production and sales in February reached 1.813 million units and 1.737 million units, down 25.2% and 31.4% respectively, and up 20.6% and 18.7% year-on-year, respectively. Among them, new energy vehicles continued to maintain rapid growth year-on-year, and automobile exports also continued to maintain a substantial year-on-year growth.
In the first two months of this year, national automobile production and sales reached 4.235 million units and 4.268 million units, respectively, an increase of 8.8% and 7.5% year-on-year, showing a 10% increase compared with the same period in 2019. According to the analysis of Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Association, the Spring Festival holiday and the multi-point sporadic epidemic in some parts of the country have affected the growth of the automobile market demand to a certain extent. Therefore, in February, automobile production and sales decreased significantly month-on-month, but showed rapid growth year-on-year.
In terms of segmented models, production and sales of passenger cars in February reached 1.534 million units and 1.487 million units, down 26.1% and 32.0% month-on-month, and 32.0% and 27.8% year-on-year, respectively. From January to February this year, production and sales of passenger cars totaled 3.612 million units, up 17.6% and 14.4% year-on-year, respectively, of 3.612 million units.
New energy vehicles also continued to maintain rapid growth year-on-year. Production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 368,000 units in February, down 18.6% and 22.7% respectively from the previous month, but up 2 times and 1.8 times year-on-year, respectively. From January to February this year, production and sales of new energy vehicles were 820,000 units and 765,000 units, up 1.6 times and 1.5 times year-on-year. Compared with the same period last year, the production and sales of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles continued to maintain a rapid growth momentum.
Auto exports also continued to shine. According to the data, automobile companies exported 180,000 vehicles in February, down 21.9% month-on-month and 60.8% year-on-year, continuing to maintain substantial growth, of which the export growth contribution of new energy vehicles reached 52.0%. From January to February this year, auto companies exported 412,000 units, up 75.0% year-on-year. By model, passenger car exports increased by 84.0% y/y to 331,000 units, while commercial vehicle exports increased by 45.7% y/y.
Chen Shihua said that from the perspective of the development trend of the automotive industry in the first quarter, with a series of larger tax and fee reductions, policies to help enterprises solve difficulties continue to land, coupled with the large-scale infrastructure projects in various places since the first quarter, it will play an obvious role in promoting economic growth. At the same time, auto companies are also accelerating the pace of new product listings, and it is expected that the auto market is expected to show a steady growth trend in the first quarter.