China likely overtook the U.S. in vehicle sales for the first time last month, a trend that could make China into the world’s largest auto market this year.
Official data for China’s auto sales in January will not be out until next week. But they are expected to show sales at about 790,000 units for the month, Zhang Xin, an analyst at Guotai Junan Securities in Beijing, said Wednesday.
In the U.S., meanwhile, auto sales in January tumbled 37 percent to 656,976 vehicles, the lowest monthly level in 26 years.
“This is the first time in history that China has passed the United States in monthly sales,” Mike DiGiovanni, General Motors Corp.‘s executive director of global market and industry analysis, said in a conference call late Tuesday.
General Motors is one of China’s biggest automakers, with billions of dollars invested in joint ventures and a record 1.09 million vehicles sold in 2008, up 6 percent from the year before.
Struggling GM has been counting on the growth in China, which passed up Japan in 2006 to become the world’s second-largest vehicle market, thanks to strong sales to the country’s fast-growing middle class.
But lately China’s car market has been cooling as consumers hold off on big purchases. Domestic vehicle sales rose only 6.7 percent in 2008 to 9.38 million units — the first time growth has fallen below 10 percent since 1999.
And January’s sales in China fell about 8 percent from the monthly record 860,000 vehicles in January 2008. That same month in the U.S., sales topped 1 million.
After seeing sales slow abruptly in the autumn, Beijing moved aggressively to prop up the industry it has nurtured over the past two decades.
“Sales rebounded last month due to the vehicle purchase tax cut,” said Gao Zhiyuan, a salesman at Shanghai Automobile Industry Hudong Sales Co., a Volkswagen dealership.
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