China's car sales slide in June, falling for third month running (updated)
08/07/2024 09:29
(Adds detail and context from paragraph 3)
BEIJING, July 8 (Reuters) - China's June car sales fell
6.9% from a year earlier, extending declines for a third
straight month as government incentives failed to spur consumer
demand in a sputtering economic recovery.
Passenger vehicle sales totalled 1.78 million in June, with
the pace of decline picking up from a 2.2% drop in May and a
5.8% fall in April, China Passenger Car Association data showed
on Monday.
A cut-throat price war since 2023 helped to lift China
vehicle sales earlier in the year but is having less effect in
recent months despite fresh government subsidies for trading in
cars, which were announced in April.
For the first half overall, China's car sales were up 2.9%
at 9.93 million vehicles.
June sales of so-called new energy vehicles including pure
electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids accounted for a record
48.1% of domestic car sales.
Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD 002594.SZ 1211.HK and
relative newcomers such as Nio 9866.HK , Zeekr ZK.N and
Leapmotor 9863.HK all logged record monthly sales.
Overall growth in electric vehicle sales cooled to 9.9% from
27.4% in May while sales of plug-in hybrids jumped 67.2%, up
from a 61.1% increase the previous month.
June car exports were up 28% year on year, against a 23%
gain in May, according to separate data from the association.
The trend for exports could weaken, however, after the
European Commission last week confirmed provisional import
tariffs of up to 37.6% on Chinese-manufactured electric
vehicles.
U.S. electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla exported 11,746
Chinese-made vehicles in June, its lowest since October 2022.
Underscoring weakness in consumer demand, a vehicle inventory
alert index compiled by the China Automobile Dealers Association
rose by 8.3 percentage points year on year to an alarming 62.3%
in June.
(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Sarah Wu
Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Bernadette Baum and David
Goodman)
((qiaoyi.li@thomsonreuters.com;))