Auto Sales Drop 1.4% in September
2008-10-13 Source：english.chinabuses.com
China’s passenger car sales reversed for a second consecutive month in September as weak economic prospects and a slumping stock market drove customers away.
Domestic car makers sold a combined 552,800 passenger cars, including sedans, sport-utility vehicles and multi-purpose vehicles, a fall of 1.4 percent from a year earlier, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in a statement yesterday.
The decrease followed a 6.24-percent decline in August, which was the first year-on-year drop over the past two years.
Sales of top European car maker Volkswagen AG grew 13.1 percent in China from January to September, compared with a 30-percent jump from a year earlier.
Potential auto buyers were held off by the 50-percent loss in the Shanghai Composite Index since the beginning of this year and a 12-year record-high inflation. The weaker economic outlook and higher fuel prices were also blamed for the market cooling.
For the first three quarters of this year, passenger car sales rose 11.36 percent year on year to 5.1 million units.
The rise marked a stunning decline from the 17.07 percent for half-year sales and 23.84 percent for the same period last year, according to industry watchers.
The drop also raised market concerns that the world's second largest auto market will not be able to achieve its full-year sales projection of 10 million units and maintain double-digit sales growth this year.
However, analysts believe the slowdown is a temporary setback for China's auto industry.
"People's income is a sensitive factor affecting vehicle sales," said Li Chunbo, an analyst at CITIC Securities Co Ltd.
"When China's macro economy grows at a steady pace, passenger car sales will likely rise a reasonable figure between 10 and 15 percent in the next five years," Li said.
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