China 2024. Vehicle Market Falls Down Drastically In February (-17.5%)

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Chinese Vehicle Market of to a stable start in 2024. New sales in February reach 1.39 million registrations (-17.5%). Market loses momentum gained over the last 4 months. Chery booms joining the top 10 (+98.6%).

Market Trend and Outlook

China’s economy grew by about 1.1% in 2023, slightly better than the official target. While this expansion would mark a significant pick-up over 2022, when China’s economy grew by just 3%, it is still one of the country’s economic worst performances in over three decades.

Barring the pandemic years through 2022, when China’s growth was disrupted by strict lockdowns and other restrictions, 5.2% is the country’s slowest pace of annual growth since 1990

China’s credit-fueled growth in recent years was accompanied by widening imbalances and rising vulnerabilities. Excessively high household savings were used to finance infrastructure and residential investment with diminishing returns, resulting in elevated debt levels.

The Chinese auto market has shown signs of a strong growth in 2024, although sales in February fell after a 4th month positive trend, reporting 1.39 million new sales (-17.5%). YTD sales reach 3.62 untis (+14.3%). 

Looking at cumulative data up to February 2024, brand-wise the Chinese EV manufacturer Volkswagen gains leadership with 325,427 sales (+15.3%), followed by the BYD -down 1 spot- in 2nd at 287,849 registrations (-4.8%).

Toyota in 3rd with 221,451 million sales (-2.5%), followed by Changan with 208,925 million registrations (+18.7%), Geely -up 1 spot- with 204,307 sales (+49.2%) and Honda -down 1 spot- with 175,025 units sold (+27.4%).

In 7th place ranks Wuling with 131,667 sales (+8.5%), followed by BMW -up 1 spot– with 127,448 (+7.7%), Mercedes -down 1 spot- with 111,748 (-6.5%) and Chery -up 6 spots- closing the Top 10 with 105,500 sales (+98.6%).

Best selling models in China are the CHANGAN CS75 in 1st -up 9 spots- with 59,235 sales (+69.1%) and the Foto Light Truck in 2nd with 57,867 cumulative units sold (+0.0%).

Medium-Term Market Trend

The Chinese vehicle market is the largest in the world and in the last decade it has maintained an overall positive trend. Starting from 14.0 million sales in 2011 the Chinese light vehicle market grew 7 years in a row reaching an all time high in 2017 with 25.6 million registrations. The following 2 years were both negative taking the market sales to 22.5 million in 2019.

The arrival of the pandemic in 2020 blocked the world economy making demand for cars fall world wide. The Chinese market stood its ground dropping only 5.9%, a smaller fall compared to 2019 (-7.6%), taking sales down to 21.2 million.

Post-covid the Chinese vehicle market recovered immediately with sales rising 4.0% in 2021 and 1.0% in 2022. 

Similarly, the Chinese auto market has shown signs of a slight slower growth in 2023, with figures at 22.37 million up a mere 1.1% from the previous year.

Tables with sales figures

In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.

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