On March 11, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers held a regular press conference to report on the production and sales of automobiles in February. Overall, automobile production and sales remained stable overall, and continued to grow year-on-year. Specifically, the production and sales of passenger cars have declined month-on-month, maintaining rapid growth year-on-year; commercial vehicle production and sales have shown a decline both month-on-month and year-on-year; new energy vehicles have performed eye-catching this month, with a decline from the previous month, but maintaining rapid growth year-on-year. In addition, automobile exports continued to grow year-on-year this month.
According to data released by the China Automobile Association, production and sales in February were 1.813 million units and 1.737 million units, down 25.2% and 31.4% month-on-month, and up 20.6% and 18.7% year-on-year, respectively. From January to February, production and sales totaled 4.235 million units, up 8.8% y/y, and sales totaled 4.268 million units, up 7.5% y/y.
Automobile production in February
Car sales in February
In the passenger car segment, production and sales in February were 1.534 million units, down 26.1% and 32.0% sequentially, up 32.0% and 27.8% year-on-year, respectively.
In terms of total sales from January to February, production and sales of passenger cars totaled 3.612 million units and 3.674 million units, up 17.6% and 14.4% year-on-year. In terms of models, in addition to MPV models, cars, SUVs, and crossover models have shown a growth trend.
Passenger car sales have changed in the last three years
From the perspective of national car series, a total of 634,000 Chinese brand passenger cars were sold in February, an increase of 27.9% year-on-year. In terms of market share, it remained flat in the same period last year.
In terms of january-February total, Chinese brand passenger car sales were 1.637 million units, up 20.3% year-on-year. In terms of market share, january- and second-month sales accounted for 44.6% of total passenger car sales, up 2.2% from the same period last year.
In the commercial vehicle segment, production and sales in February were 279,000 units, down 19.2% and 27.4% sequentially, and 18.3% and 16.6% y/y, respectively.
From January to February, production and sales of commercial vehicles totaled 624,000 units, down 24.0% and 21.7% year-on-year, respectively. The decline was 2.8% lower than that in January to October. In terms of different models, the production and sales of trucks and buses have shown a downward trend.
In February, production and sales of new energy vehicles totaled 368,000 units, up 2.0 times and 1.8 times, respectively, year-on-year. From the perspective of subdivided energy types, the production and sales of pure electric vehicles were 285,000 and 258,000 units, the production and sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles were 83,000 units and 75,000 units, respectively, and the production and sales of fuel cell vehicles were 213 units and 178 units, respectively.
Production of new energy vehicles in February
From January to February this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles were 820,000 units and 765,000 units, an increase of 1.6 times and 1.5 times year-on-year. Among the main varieties of new energy vehicles, the production and sales of pure electric vehicles were 652,000 units and 604,000 units, an increase of 1.4 times year-on-year, respectively; the production and sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles were 168,000 units and 160,000 units, up 2.8 times and 2.5 times year-on-year, respectively; the production and sales of fuel cell vehicles were 356 units and 371 units, respectively, an increase of 5.0 times and 3.1 times year-on-year, respectively.
New energy sales in February
In terms of exports, automobile exports in February were 180,000 units, down 21.9% month-on-month and 60.8% year-on-year. From January to February this year, auto companies exported 412,000 units, up 75.0% year-on-year.
The market concentration of key enterprise groups is lower than that of the same period. From January to February, the top 10 companies (groups) in terms of automobile sales sold a total of 3.670 million units, accounting for 86.0% of total automobile sales, 1.2 percentage points lower than the same period last year.
At the press conference, the China Automobile Association believes that at present, the mainland's macroeconomic operation is generally stable, the production situation of enterprises is generally good, and the manufacturing PMI continues to run smoothly in the expansion range. The production index and new order index of the automotive industry are both higher than 54.0%, and the industry is developing rapidly. Moreover, the production and operation activity expectation index has been in the high boom range of more than 60.0% for two consecutive months since January, which is higher than the average level of the manufacturing industry. The automotive industry has worked hard to overcome difficulties, and the production and marketing situation is generally slightly better than expected.
For the future development of the automotive industry, Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that with the successive landing of a series of tax reduction dividends and poverty alleviation policies, as well as the construction of large-scale infrastructure projects in various places, it will play a role in fueling economic development. 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. Of course, we should also see that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has caused geopolitical tensions, the external environment has become more complex and severe and uncertain, and the real economy is facing the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shock and expected weakening. In addition, problems such as chip shortages and rising raw material costs still exist. To this end, we remain cautiously optimistic about the future development of the industry, and also recommend that enterprises pay attention to changes in the internal and external situation in a timely manner, consider and plan in advance the risks that may be encountered, and strive to seize the opportunity and win the initiative.