Demand for new light vehicles in China showed signs of losing steam in August, casting shadows on the market’s prospects heading into the final months of 2020.
Sales of new light vehicles including sedans, crossovers, SUVs, multipurpose vehicles and minibuses increased 4.4 percent last month from a year earlier, according to estimates the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers released Wednesday.
The increase is sharply lower than the 8.5 percent growth recorded for July. By contrast, sales of commercial vehicles including buses and trucks remain robust, surging an estimated 38 percent last month, the trade group said.
Taken together, new-vehicle deliveries industrywide rose 11 percent to about 2.18 million in August, according to the industry group’s estimates.
CAAM didn’t provide a breakdown for light-vehicle or commercial-vehicle sales in its estimates for last month. To date, light-vehicle sales in China have grown four straight months after the coronavirus outbreak was largely contained by mid-March.
Demand for commercial vehicles has increased five months in a row, after Beijing ramped up investments in infrastructure projects to revive the national economy in the wake of the pandemic.
Because of the steep contraction caused by the viral outbreak in the first quarter, total new-vehicle sales across China through August dropped 9.7 percent to some 14.54 million. For the period, light-vehicle deliveries fell 16 percent while commercial-vehicle sales advanced 17 percent, according to CAAM’s estimates.
The industry group normally releases final new-vehicle sales around the 10th of each month.