China's auto production and sales fell in 2017 China Automobile Association: this year may continue to slow down

According to the data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers on January 11, in 2017, China's auto production and sales were 29,015,400 vehicles and 28,887,900 vehicles, an increase of 3.19% and 3.04% year-on-year, and the growth rate was down by 11.27 percentage points and 10.61 percentage points from the same period of last year. The production and sales of passenger cars were 24,806,700 units and 24,718,300 units, an increase of 1.58% and 1.40% year-on-year; commercial vehicle production and sales were 4,207,700 units and 4,16,600 units, an increase of 13.81% and 13.95% respectively.

In 2017, the top ten companies in terms of automobile sales volume were: SAIC, Dongfeng, FAW, Chang'an, BAIC, GAC, Geely, Great Wall, Brilliance and Chery. In 2017, the above-mentioned ten companies sold a total of 25,562,400 vehicles, accounting for 88.52% of the total sales of automobiles.

The relevant person in charge of the China Automobile Association stated that in 2017, China's auto industry is facing certain pressures. On the one hand, due to the reduction in the preferential rate of purchase tax, the passenger car market will have advanced overdraft in 2016; on the other hand, the new energy auto policy will be adjusted. In the first half of the year, sales have a certain impact.

Due to the reduction of the purchase tax preferential rate, the growth rate of production and sales of passenger cars in 2017 has slowed down significantly, and is the lowest level of annual growth since 2008. In 2017, the production and sales of passenger cars completed 24.807 million vehicles and 24.718 million vehicles respectively, which represented a year-on-year increase of 1.6% and 1.4% respectively, which were both lower than the overall automobile ratio of 1.6 percentage points, and accounted for 85.5% and 85.6% of automobile production and sales respectively, which were lower than 1.3 and 1.4 percentage points in the previous year.

New energy vehicles have become the biggest highlight of the auto market in 2017. In the year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles were nearly 800,000, an increase of 53.8% and 53.3% year-on-year respectively. The year-on-year increase in production and sales volume increased by 2.1 and 0.3 percentage points respectively. In 2017, the new energy auto market accounted for 2.7%, which was an increase of 0.9% from the previous year.

The relevant person in charge of CAAM forecasts that in 2018, the domestic auto market or sales will reach 29.87 million vehicles, and the expected growth rate is 3%. Due to the overall negative influence of the automobile market in 2018, under the background of weak growth of passenger vehicles and slowdown in the growth rate of commercial vehicles, it is expected that the growth of automobile sales in 2018 will not be higher than in 2017.