In 2019, production and sales of automotive vehicles in China totaled 25.721 million units and 25.769 million units, down 7.5 percent and 8.2 percent year on year, respectively, 3.3 and 5.4 percentage points faster than the declining pace recorded in 2018, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
The sales of automotive vehicles declined at a faster rate in the first half of 2019, while they indicated an improvement in the second half of the year, e.g. sales in December 2019 only decreased by 0.1 percent year on year.
In 2019, passenger vehicles output and sales amounted to 21.36 million units and 21.444 million units, accounting for 83 percent and 83.2 percent of output and sales of automobile vehicles, while down 9.2 percent and 9.6 percent year on year, respectively.
Commercial vehicles output and sales in the given year amounted to 4.36 million units and 4.324 million units, up 1.9 percent and down 1.1 percent year on year, respectively.
The production and sales of new energy vehicles amounted to 1.242 million units and 1.206 million units in 2019, down 2.3 percent and 4.0 percent respectively year on year.
Chen Shihua, deputy secretary general of CAAM, stated that the factors of transformation and upgrading in the automobile industry, US-China trade frictions, changes in environmental protection standards and the cutting back of new energy vehicles subsidies have negatively affected the automobile industry. Though production and sales of automotive vehicles in China reached the highest level in the world, they indicated year-on-year decreases again following the year-on-year decline in 2018 - the first decrease which had been recorded since 1990.
Xu Haidong, assistant to the secretary general of CAAM, reiterated that China’s sales of automotive vehicles in 2020 will indicate a year-on-year drop of 2.0 percent to 25.31 million units, the same forecast made by CAAM in December 2019.
Meanwhile, Xu said that new energy vehicles sales will likely remain stable or see a slight rise in 2020.