Markets
10/05/2024

April Saw A New High For China's Car Exports Amidst Declining Domestic Sales




According to figures released on Friday, China's automobile exports reached a new high in April, while domestic sales fell 5.8% from the previous year due to customers' reluctance to spend much on large-ticket products during the country's precarious economic recovery.
 
April's car exports increased 38% year over year to 417,000 units, the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) reported. This is a solid continuation of the previous month's 39% growth in exports.
 
China has been aggressively investigating South America, Australia, and ASEAN markets for exports, according to Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the organisation. However, a continuing anti-subsidy probe by the EU into Chinese manufacturers has interrupted and placed pressure on car shipments to the union.
 
He said that as competition in the home market heats up, regional manufacturers would have to decide between losing out and moving abroad.
 
According to CPCA data, passenger car sales in the largest auto market in the world decreased 5.8% year over year to 1.55 million units in April and 9.6% from March. Automobile sales increased 5.7% year over year and 53% month over month in March.
 
"Market sluggishness was worse than expected, while some automakers still strived to keep producing and resulted in rising inventories at dealerships," Cui stated.
 
Even if the world's largest auto market was able to quickly achieve its green objective thanks to a record high in the percentage of sales of new energy vehicles, the sales of electric vehicles (EVs) are still far behind those of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs).
 
After surpassing half in the first half of April, NEV sales reached a record full-month high of 43.5% of all automobile sales. By 2027, China wants to reach 45% of this goal.
 
While PHEV sales increased 64.2% compared to a surge of 75.4% in March, EV sales accelerated to 12.1% in April from 10.5% in March. Sales of EVs fell 6.3% from March, while those of PHEVs fell 4.7%.
 
The success of the domestic behemoth BYD is mostly due to the PHEV category, which has risen quicker since 2022 and accounted for 57% of the company's car sales in April.
 
According to Association data, China's share of the worldwide PHEV market increased to about 70% in the first quarter.
 
Despite being the forerunners in hybrid technology, Japanese manufacturers trailed behind, only obtaining 1.9% of the worldwide PHEV market in the first quarter.
 
Despite a prolonged pricing battle that has attracted over 40 companies, China's appetite for electric vehicles is slowing down, as seen by mediocre sales of EVs and mounting wagers on an all-electric future.
 
China has announced trade-in incentives of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,380) per to entice wary buyers, and more automakers, like Tesla and BYD, have begun to offer top-selling models with no down payments.
 
(Source:www.reuters.com) 

Christopher J. Mitchell
In the same section