On April 11, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers released the national automobile production and sales data for the first quarter of 2022. In March this year, national automobile production and sales reached 2.241 million units and 2.234 million units, up 23.4% and 28.4% month-on-month, and down 9.1% and 11.7% year-on-year. From January to March this year, the national automobile production and sales were 6.484 million units and 6.509 million units, an increase of 2.0% and 0.2% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 6.8 and 7.3 percentage points lower than that of the previous two months, respectively.
"In March, there was a cluster of epidemics in many parts of the country, and the factors of international geopolitical instability increased significantly, and the production and operation activities of mainland enterprises were affected to a certain extent. In addition, the shortage of chips has not improved significantly, especially the rapid rise in the price of raw materials for power batteries has promoted the rise in production costs of enterprises, so most companies have raised sales prices, affecting sales in the terminal market. Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Automobile Association, said that due to this impact, the momentum of automobile consumption in March was obviously insufficient, and the overall production and sales situation of automobiles was less than expected.
Despite this, the production and sales performance of new energy vehicles is still significantly better than that of the industry, and it continues to maintain a rapid growth momentum month-on-month and year-on-year. According to the data, the national production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 465,000 units and 484,000 units respectively in March, an increase of 25.4% and 43.9% month-on-month, an increase of 1.1 times year-on-year, and the market share reached 21.7%.
In the first quarter of this year, the national production and sales of new energy vehicles were 1.293 million units and 1.257 million units, an increase of 1.4 times year-on-year, and the market share reached 19.3%, and the strategic leading role was further highlighted. Among the main varieties of new energy vehicles, compared with the same period last year, the production and sales of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles continued their rapid growth momentum, and fuel cell vehicles continued their rapid growth momentum month-on-month and year-on-year.
In March, Chinese brand passenger cars also performed significantly better than the market, with sales growing rapidly both month-on-month and year-on-year. A total of 904,000 units were sold in the month, up 42.1% month-on-month and 21.5% year-on-year, accounting for 48.5% of total passenger car sales; the market share increased by 5.8% from the previous month and 8.8% from the same period last year.
Among them, the market share of Chinese brand cars, SUVs and MPVs was 38.2%, 55.1% and 61.1% respectively, showing growth compared with the previous month, of which the growth of Chinese brand MPVs was more obvious. From January to March this year, Chinese brand passenger cars sold a total of 2.547 million units, an increase of 21% year-on-year, accounting for 45.9% of total passenger car sales, and a share increase of 4.6% over the same period last year.
"Looking forward to the situation throughout the year, affected by the macro-economy, the development of the automotive industry is facing the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shock and weak expectations, and the task of stabilizing growth is very arduous." Fu Bingfeng said that local governments should refine the national policies and measures on stable growth as soon as possible, and enterprises should continue to actively take effective countermeasures. "We recommend that government departments introduce policies and measures to promote automobile consumption, including the previous effective purchase tax halving policy."
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