China’s locally-made passenger vehicle retail sales likely to dip 1.5% YoY in April 2024: CPCA

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- China's domestic passenger vehicle ("PV") retail sales are anticipated to reach 1.6 million units in April 2024, which should drop 5.3% from the previous month, and fell 1.5% from the previous year, according to the China Passenger Car Association ("CPCA").

Of the PVs retailed in China in April, around 720,000 units were expected to be new energy vehicles (NEVs referring to battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles), remaining flating over a year ago, representing a year-on-year leap of 37.1%, and indicating a 45% penetration rate.

For clarity, the passenger vehicles hereby refer to the cars, SUVs, and MPVs locally produced in the world's largest auto market.

According to the CPCA’s data, in the first week of April, the average daily retail sales  reached 34,200 vehicles, down by 8.3% compared to the year-ago period and by 3.6% compared to March 2024. This decrease can mainly be attributed to the low sales volume during the Qing Ming vacation. Moving into the second week, the average daily PV sales sees a modest recovery to 38,800 vehicles, but it still experienced a decline of 1.1% compared to the same week of March.

By the third week, the market heated up slightly with the average daily retail sales climbing up to 48,000 units, yet still featuring a year-on-year reduction of 12.5% and a slight drop of 1.1% over the month-ago period. With the opening of Auto China 2024, pent-up demand have been somewhat unleased in late April, thus it is anticipated that average daily PV sales in the fourth week would reach 83,100 units, marking a year-on-year growth of 13.4% and a month-on-month increase of 2.3%.