Why is the total national auto production and sales negative?

On January 14, 2019, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) released the 2018 annual auto production and sales data. The data show that the overall operation of the automobile industry in 2018 was stable, affected by policy and macroeconomic factors, production and sales were lower than expected at the beginning of the year, and the annual automobile production and sales were completed at 27.809 million units and 28.081 million units respectively, a year-on-year decline of 4.16% and 2.76%.

China's automobile sales grew rapidly between 2001 and 2010, with an average annual growth rate of 24%. 2010 to 2018 saw a decline, with an average annual growth rate of 5.7%. 2018, automobile sales of 28.08 million units, a drop of 800,000 units from the previous year, was the first time since 1990 that sales growth was negative.

The decline in China's auto sales in 2018 was related to macro factors and market factors, among others.

1, macroeconomic factors, GDP slow decline, the continuation of the trend of economic structure differentiation, investment and consumption double decline, trade friction between China and the United States, real estate to inventory.

2, market factors, 2017 purchase tax incentives in advance of the release of demand for car purchases, fluctuations in the sale of used cars, the implementation of the sixth stage of emission standards, as well as consumption upgrading and other factors, automobile sales have been under some pressure.

3, the second and third tier and central and western markets, especially the northern market is seriously depressed, consumer confidence is insufficient.

In the view of Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the National Passenger Vehicle Market Information Association, the main reason why the auto market declined more seriously last year was that the passenger car market was in a serious downturn, especially in the SUV market, but on the contrary, the market for trucks, light trucks, micro trucks, heavy trucks and so on, didn't show a drastic decline.

Specifically, from January to December last year, passenger car **** sales of 23,709,800 units, a year-on-year decline of 4.08%. Among them, sedan sales of 11,527,800 units, down 2.70% year-on-year, SUV sales of 9,994,700 units, down 2.52% year-on-year, MPV sales of 1,734,600 units, down 16.22% year-on-year, and crossover passenger car sales of 452,600 units, down 17.26% year-on-year.

And last year, commercial vehicle production and sales year-on-year continue to show growth, the growth rate fell significantly. The data show that the production and sales of commercial vehicles reached 4.28 million and 4.371 million respectively, an increase of 1.7% and 5.1% over the same period of the previous year, with the growth rate falling by 12.1 percentage points and 8.9 percentage points respectively.

Meanwhile, last year, the car market is more obvious characteristics of consumer upgrading, luxury car market performance is still stronger than other segments, such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW annual sales growth of 11%, 11%, 7.7%. And occupy nearly half of the market share of the independent brand sales of the dramatic decline, affecting the direction of the car market last year.