China’s annual auto sales up for first time since 2017

• Financial

On Wednesday, data from China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, a Beijing-based group of China’s top-tier auto industry moguls founded back in the 1987, just before a renaissance in Chinse economy what is said to have turned a ‘worn-out’ east Asian nation to the world’s second-largest economy in less than three decades, issued a statement saying that China’s annual auto sales rose for the first time in nearly half a decade last year, driven by an upscaled demand of electric and hybrid vehicles.

The world’s largest market for automakers had reported a 1-1/2-fold jump in sales of so-called newer energy vehicles on 2021. Aside from that, according to data from China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), China’s annual car sales had soared 3.8 per cent last year compared to a year earlier, as stronger-than-anticipated newer energy vehicles sales in December had brought the tally to a total of 26.28 million.

CAAM forecasts sales growth in 2022

Concomitantly, CAAM was quoted saying in a statement that sales and productions of autos would likely to be spurred up further in 2022, as blazing issues such as a stabbing semiconductor shortage alongside a supply chain constraint begin to ease.

Nonetheless, following decades of upbeat growth since 1990s as beforementioned, China’s auto market had contracted back in 2018s amid mounting pressures to perter out tax incentives for carmakers, while a trade row with the US had darkened the outlook further apart from the pandemic.

Nevertheless, as pandemic cases started off slowing down in mid-2020 in China, auto sales in the world’s second-largest economy had clawed back sharply. However, earlier in 2021, Chinese auto industry had been met with a steep shortage of semiconductors alongside other top-tier carmakers across the globe.

Nevertheless, as supply chain logjam has reportedly been easing, China’s annual auto sales surged last year. Though, on a year-on-year basis, Chinese auto sales tumbled 1.6 per cent in December, however, a spring-up in demands of newer energy vehicles came forth as a silver lining with sales of battery-powered vehicles, hybrid vehicles and hydrogen-powered vehicles skyrocketing as much as 157.5 per cent to 3.52 million units last year.