China's June auto sales are forecast at 1.926 million units, down 16.3 percent from a year earlier and down 9.5 percent from May, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said Monday.
June passenger car sales are estimated to fall 14.9 percent from a year earlier, and commercial vehicle sales are down 20.8 percent from a year earlier, the CAAM said.
From January to June, cumulative sales in China's auto industry are estimated at 12.801 million units, up 24.8 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.
Passenger vehicle sales were up 26.2 percent year-on-year and commercial vehicle sales were up 20.0 percent year-on-year, the CAAM said.
The CAAM previously mentioned that the lower Chinese vehicle sales in May were mainly affected by a shortage of chip supply and that the issue's impact on production may be the highest in the second quarter.
Ye Shengji, chief engineer and deputy secretary-general of the CAAM, said at the 2021 China Automotive Forum that the automotive chip shortage problem is expected to have the most serious impact in the second quarter, and optimistically expects chip supply to start easing in the second half of the year.
It is worth noting that the electric car companies that have now announced their June sales are all performing strongly.
Nio delivered a record 8,083 vehicles in June, up 116.1 percent year-on-year. This is the first time the company has delivered more than 8,000 in a single month, up 20.4 percent compared to May.
Nio delivered 21,896 vehicles in the second quarter, up 111.9 percent year-on-year, for five consecutive quarters of positive growth. Nio delivered 41,956 units in the first half of the year, reaching 95.9 percent of last year's annual deliveries.
Xpeng Motors delivered a record 6,565 units in June, up 15 percent sequentially from 5,686 units in May and up 617 percent year-on-year.
The company delivered 17,398 units in the second quarter, also the strongest quarterly delivery result ever.
Xpeng's cumulative deliveries for the first half of the year have already surpassed deliveries for all of 2020, reaching 30,738 units, 5.6 times the number delivered in the same period last year.
Li Auto delivered a record 7,713 units of the Li ONE, the company's only model, in June. This represents a 320.6 percent increase over the same month last year and a 78.4 percent increase over May.
Li Auto added more than 10,000 new orders in June, an all-time high.
