April passenger vehicle sales in China are expected to be around 1.57 million units, down 1.3 percent from March, the CPCA said.
China's new energy vehicle (NEV) sales rose significantly this month from a year ago, though they were down from March.
In April, retail sales of NEVs in China are expected to be around 500,000 units, up 77 percent from a year earlier but down 8.4 percent from March, according to estimates released today by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
Survey shows that car companies, which contribute about 80 percent of passenger car sales, are targeting slightly lower retail sales in April than in March, the CPCA said.
According to preliminary projections, China's passenger vehicle sales in April were about 1.57 million units, up 49.8 percent from a year earlier but down 1.3 percent from March, the CPCA said.
That means the penetration of NEVs at retail in April would be 31.8 percent.
Last April, China's auto industry suffered disruption due to the Covid lockdown in Shanghai, with 1.04 million units of all passenger vehicles sold that month, including just 280,000 NEVs.
In the first quarter of this year, China's NEV sales continued to recover, with 545,739 units sold in March, according to the CPCA's final figures released last week. This is slightly higher than the 543,000 units announced by the CPCA on April 11.
In April, the price war in China's auto industry gradually receded and consumers returned to rational consumption, easing the wait-and-see sentiment, the CPCA said in the report today.
The average daily retail sales of major automakers in the first three weeks were 31,500, 36,700 and 54,800, up 8 percent, 23 percent and 26 percent, respectively, from the same period in March, the CPCA said.
But in the fourth week, the average daily retail sales of car companies are expected to fall 14 percent from the fourth week of March, considering that automaker sales usually have an upward pulse at the end of the quarter, according to the CPCA.
With a large number of local government stimulus policies expiring at the end of March and fewer policy incentives in April, no strong stimulus policies are expected to provide support in the short term, the CPCA said.
China's Mar passenger NEV retail up 23.6% MoM to 543,000, CPCA data show
