AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)04/09 Report--

On April 9, the Federation of passengers released the production and sales data of China's passenger car market in March. Data show that retail sales in the national passenger car market reached 1.045 million in March, down 40.4 percent from a year earlier. Retail sales in the national passenger car market totaled 3.014 million from January to March, down 40.8 per cent from the same period last year.

Passenger car sales showed a trough V-shaped rebound in March, the Federation said in a report. The month-on-month growth rate of retail sales in March was the strongest in recent years, reflecting the rapid recovery of rigid demand consumption after the epidemic. Since the beginning of this year, due to the dual influence of the internal consumption rhythm in advance of the Spring Festival and the external negative environmental factors brought about by the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, the cumulative sales loss has been about 2.09 million vehicles.

Judging from the car companies that have announced sales, the rate of decline is slightly lower than the market level. Among them, Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda's first-quarter sales fell 22.10%, 33.70%, 39.90% and 30.70% respectively, while JAC first-quarter sales fell 36% from a year earlier. By contrast, sales of Great Wall and Geely fell sharply in the first quarter, down 47% and 44% respectively from a year earlier.

According to data previously released by the Federation of passengers, retail sales fell 61% in the last week of February, 50% in the first week of March, 44% in the second week, 40% in the third week, and 24% in the last week. it shows that retail sales in the car market have improved steadily under the influence of the epidemic.

For the future, the Federation said that the severity of the overseas epidemic is increasing, but authorities predict that it will reach an inflection point at the end of April. With the changes in quality and the situation abroad, coupled with the fact that the domestic epidemic situation has gradually overcome various kinds and gradually stabilized, the consumer market is still mainly positive and gentle recovery.

In addition, in order to stimulate consumption in the automobile market, on March 31, the executive meeting of the State Council decided on three policies: first, to extend the policy of subsidies for the purchase of new energy vehicles and exemption from purchase tax for two years. Second, the central government has adopted awards instead of subsidies to support the elimination of diesel trucks with national III and lower emission standards in key areas such as Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. Third, second-hand car dealers will sell used cars, and value-added tax will be levied on sales reduced by 0.5% from May 1 to the end of 2023.

The HKIFA said that the subsidy for the purchase of new energy vehicles originally ended in 2020, and then it was driven by the double points policy. As the actual start-up time of the double points policy will not be assessed until 2021, there are still many uncertain risks in the policy transition period, which may lead to a structural decline in the production and sales of new energy vehicles. The appropriate extension of the policy of purchase subsidy and exemption from purchase tax is expected to achieve a smooth transition of production and marketing in the automobile industry during the conversion period and alleviate the operational pressure of new energy enterprises.

Affected by the epidemic, the production and sales volume of the major car companies in the first quarter of this year were at an all-time low, but compared with February, the car market rebounded significantly in March, showing a trend of slowly climbing from the trough as a whole. With the resumption of the opening of primary and secondary schools and the arrival of Labour Day short holiday, the country will usher in a wave of car purchases. Coupled with the national level and various prefecture-level cities issued corresponding policies to stimulate consumption in the automobile market, the recovery will continue in April. However, Cui Dongshu said that although many local governments have introduced subsidy policies, the way of subsidies is not clear, and the landing details have not been issued, resulting in policies to stimulate car consumption are not very attractive to consumers.

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