In 2022, 3.11 million vehicles were exported from China, of which Chery contributed 452,000, or 14.5 percent.
(Image credit: Chery)
While China's auto market is becoming more competitive, some car companies are actively expanding overseas markets.
Chery sent 24,000 vehicles to 11 countries, including those in Europe, Central Asia, Australia and South America, during the just-passed Chinese New Year holiday, and car carriers to nearly half of those countries have arrived, the auto giant said today.
A ship carrying 3,286 Chery vehicles set sail from the Port of Shanghai on January 21 and is expected to reach Turkey and other European markets in a month's time, the automaker said.
The latest Chinese New Year holiday was January 21-27, and car companies' delivery activities at home are usually greatly affected because employees and government departments are on vacation. Therefore, sending vehicles to overseas markets during this period seems to be a good option.
China's retail sales of passenger vehicles in January are expected to be 1.36 million units, down 34.6 percent year-on-year and down 37.3 percent from December, the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) said on January 28.
Retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles are expected to be at 360,000 units, up 1.8 percent from a year ago but down 43.8 percent from December, the CPCA said.
In 2022, vehicle exports from China reached 3.11 million units, of which Chery contributed 452,000, or 14.5 percent, ranking as China's top passenger car export brand for 20 consecutive years, according to the automaker. Its exports grew 68 percent year-on-year last year.
That means that in 2022, one out of every seven cars exported from China were made by Chery, it said.
To date, Chery has exported more than 2.4 million vehicles, accounting for 20 percent of all Chinese auto exports in the same period, the automaker said.
Tesla is also one of the key contributors to auto exports from China. The US electric vehicle giant exported 271,095 vehicles from its Shanghai plant in 2022, according to data monitored by CnEVPost.
Notably, Chery's exports appear to be dominated by conventional vehicles, while all of Tesla's vehicles are electric.
To date, Chery has accumulated more than 11.2 million car consumers worldwide, including 2.4 million overseas, it said.
To ensure shipping capacity for car exports, some Chinese car companies have started to order car carriers.
Guangzhou Shipyard International Company Limited said on January 23 that it had received an order for two pure car/truck carriers (PCTCs) from BYD.
On November 27 last year, maritime information service platform Xinde Marine News said in an article, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, that several automakers, including Chery and Nio, were planning to order their own car carriers.
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