China’s monthly passenger-car sales passed 1 million units for the first time, signaling that the government may ease stimulus measures in the world’s largest auto market so far this year.
September sales of cars, sport-utility vehicles and multipurpose vehicles climbed 84 percent to 1.015 million, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in an e- mailed statement today. Overall vehicle sales, including trucks and busses, rose 78 percent to 1.33 million units.
VW announced that their sales in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong from January to September has already topped last year’s sales record.
During the period, 1.06 million VW cars were sold in the country, a rise of 37% compared to the same period last year. Last year, a total of 1.02 million VW cars were sold.
The company expects this year’s total sales to be more than 30% higher. VW is one of the early entrants to the Chinese market and sells cars in the country through joint ventures with First Automobile Works and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC).
Under its current partnership with SAIC, the Volkswagen and the Skoda brands are manufactured along with the Volkswagen Santana, Santana Vista, Passat, Polo, Touran, Lavida and Skoda Octavia. VW plans to sell two million cars in China by 2018.
The company’s robust sales clearly benefited from Beijing’s strategy to spur domestic consumption through tax cuts and subsidies although it is uncertain whether the country will be able to sustain this type of growth when the effects of the stimulus plan taper off
