China Auto Sales Rebound Strongly in September

China’s auto industry appears to be rebounding from a period of weak growth with a 19.2 percent month-on-month jump to 1.65 million units in September, said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) Thursday.

By contrast, for the first nine months of the year sales rose only 3.62 percent year-on-year to 13.63 million units due to slowing growth in spring and summer.

Auto production also accelerated in September, jumping 15% from August to 1.6 million units. For the first nine months output period grew only 2.75 percent to 13.46 million units.

Broken down by category, September passenger car sales jumped 20.5% from August to 1.32 million units. It was also a healthy 8.8 percent rise from the same month of 2010.

For the first nine months passenger vehicle sales rose 6.4% over last year to 10.5 million units.

The relative strength of passenger car sales shows continuing robust growth in demand created by the millions of Chinese consumers who join the middle class each month despite recent talk of a slowdown in economic growth.

Car sales, which had soared 35% in 2010, had slowed to a crawl beginning in early 2011 due to the phasing out of incentive programs meant to stimulate growth following the global financial crisis. Also, cities like Beijing had imposed radical limits on new car registration in an effort to get ahead of air pollution and traffic congestion.

New measures to encourage greener, more fuel-efficient cars that took effect on October 1 are starting to stimulate production and sales of small cars.

Total auto sales for the year is expected to rise between 3 and 5 percent over 2010 to around 18.6 million units this year.