In China, new car sales continue to be well above last year’s levels. On a monthly level, admittedly. The impact of the corona crisis is still clearly visible throughout the year.
In the month of July, no less than 16.4 percent more new cars were registered in China than in the same month last year. 2.11 million cars found a first owner. This is evident from figures from the Chinese industry association CAAM. Another month in which sales rebounded considerably compared to last year. For the fourth month in a row, the number of new cars sold was higher than in 2019. It is clear that the corona crisis, as crazy as it may sound, is responsible for this. Postponed purchases, but also the greater desire for personal transport, are pushing up demand – probably temporarily -.
The Chinese manufacturers Geely and Great Wall in particular performed well in July. Of the foreign brands, Toyota in particular saw a strong increase in sales. Incidentally, the sale of alternatively powered cars is also picking up again. Plug-ins, hybrids and BEVs were sold 19.3 percent more often than in July last year. This while the sales figures in the past 12 months were invariably lower than in the same period a year earlier.
Although new car sales are now experiencing a huge revival, the suffering of the lockdown months has still not been compensated. For the whole of 2020, the counter is 12.37 million new cars sold in China, 12.7 percent less than in the same period last year. Reuters notes that the CAAM takes into account two follow-up scenarios. Sales can continue like this and then stabilize again; then a dip of 10 percent over the whole of 2020 is anticipated compared to last year. In the event of a possible revival of the corona virus, car sales could in the worst case be 20 percent lower than in 2019.