China's auto sales surged to a monthly record of 1.66 million units in January, extending last year's strong growth and showing resilience contrary to forecasts of weaker sales growth.
However, the rapid pace of growth is unlikely to be sustainable, as January's rise was helped by a low comparison base in the same month of last year, when Beijing had yet to introduce measures to boost vehicle sales in China during the global economic crisis.
Sales last month rose 126% to 1.66 million units, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Tuesday. Executives at auto manufacturers have said they expect 2010 sales growth in China to slow to 10%-15%, a trend that may only become clear in March. Last year, China's vehicle sales rose nearly 50% to 13.6 million units, overtaking the U.S. as the world's largest auto market.
In January 2009, China's automobile sales fell 14% from a year earlier in an anomaly that marked the final month of decline in sales before the government introduced incentives in late January.
Last year, China's auto market started to show momentum a couple months after January, when manufacturers started to increase production to meet demand, said Yale Zhang, an analyst at CSM Worldwide.
"We need to look at growth from March," Zhang said. "That will show whether the market will continue to grow in a healthy way or not."
In late January 2009, Beijing introduced incentives to boost its auto sector, including halving a purchase tax on small vehicles to 5%, which analysts said likely helped sales soar last year at the expense of growth this year.
However, the government pull backed some incentives this year, raising the tax to 7.5%, which remains below the normal rate of 10% but could provide less incentive for consumers to buy new vehicles. Separately, the government increased the subsidy for trade-ins of old, pollutive vehicles to CNY5,000-CNY18,000, from between CNY3,000 and CNY6,000 previously.
China has been a bright spot for auto makers, who have had weak demand in developed markets.
Mercedes-Benz (China) Ltd. said Tuesday its January sales in China rose 150% from a year earlier to 8,120 units.
Last week, GM said its January sales in China rose 97% from a year earlier to 219,192 units, while a Toyota spokesman said the Japanese auto maker's sales in China rose 53% to 72,000 units in January. Ford Motor Co. said its passenger vehicle sales in China last month surged 128% from a year earlier to 30,759 units.
(Source: irco.biz)
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