The rapid growth in acceptance of new energy vehicles (NEVs) among Chinese residents makes analysts raising sales estimates.

In a research note released Thursday, CITIC Securities raised its China 2021 NEV sales forecast to 2.83 million units from 2.49 million units, implying a 121 percent increase from 2020.

In the short term, China's NEV sales growth turned positive from the third quarter of 2020 and has continued to grow at a high rate, with growth rates of 41 percent, 82 percent, 359 percent and 92 percent in the past four quarters, the team noted.

In the medium to long term, China's NEVs have crossed from subsidy-driven to market-driven and entered the "1 to N high-speed growth" phase, the note said.

Driven by policy support and quality product supply, China's NEV sales are expected to approach 7.8 million units by 2025, with a penetration rate of more than 20 percent, the note said.

Not only China, the team is also bullish on the NEV market in Europe and the US.

In Europe, driven by subsidy policies and new carbon emission regulations, NEV sales reached 1.367 million units in 2020, up 142 percent year-over-year. With the acceleration of new models from European traditional car companies entering the market, European NEV sales are expected to exceed 1.9 million units in 2021, the report said.

From 2017-2020, US NEV sales will be 200,000, 360,000, 320,000 and 330,000 units, respectively. With the policy support of the Biden administration, the US market is expected to exceed 600,000 NEV sales in 2021, up more than 80 percent year-over-year, the team said.

As a global leader in electric vehicles, Tesla continues to expand production to achieve sales of 500,000 vehicles in 2020, and sales are expected to reach 1 million vehicles in 2021, the note said.

China's NEV sales expected to reach 2.8 million this year, report says