China auto sales seen surpassing US in January
China likely overtook the US in vehicle sales for the first time last month, a trend that could make China into the world's largest auto market this year.
By Agencies |
SHANGHAI: China likely overtook the US 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 on Wednesday.
In the US, meanwhile, auto sales in January tumbled 37 per cent to 656,976 vehicles.
"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 yesterday.
For all of 2009, DiGiovanni projected that Chinese auto sales are likely to hit 10.7 million vehicles, more than the estimated 9.8 million unit sales in the US this year. Autodata Corp forecasts 2009 US sales at 9.57 million.
Comparing Chinese and US sales figures can be somewhat misleading, due to differences in which vehicles are counted.
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But China, with its 1.3 billion people, was bound to catch up with the US, population 300 million, sooner or later, and the latest trends suggest it may be sooner than expected due to the drastic contraction in the American auto market.Download
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