Shanghai (ZXZC)- In January, automakers in China sold a total of 1,606,668 locally-produced PVs (hereby referring to cars, MPVs, SUVs and minibuses), a year-on-year decrease of 21.6% and a month-on-month drop of 27.3%, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Clearly, the Spring Festival holiday and the outbreak of the new coronavirus infection, the two reasons we have highlighted for several times, should be blamed for the PV sales downturn as well. Compared to the year-ago period, both MPV and minibus sectors posted decrease of over 30% in wholesale volume. Besides, the sales of cars and SUVs also represented downturn movement of 25.9% and 14.1%.

Amid the overall downturn, there were few automakers achieving growth, according to the CPCA. FAW-Volkswagen was honored the champion by Jan. PV wholesale volume, followed by SAIC-GM and SAIC Volkswagen. Notably, SAIC-GM moved up to the runner-up place from the sixth in December 2019. The other two automakers that sold over 100,000 PVs were Geely Auto and Dongfeng Nissan.

Two joint ventures of Toyota and Dongfeng Honda were ranked from sixth to eighth. All of them were not on the top 10 list for the previous month. In addition, Great Wall Motor and Changan Automobile had their rankings unchanged.

As of retail sales, China's PV market suffered a year-on-year decline of 21.6%. Much of the blame has been laid on the Lunar New Year holiday. The coronavirus epidemic further worsened the situation.

The CPCA said the SUV deliveries in Jan. shrank 17.1% from a year ago, of which the number of A-segment SUVs fell 17%, while the B segment gained an increase of 6%.

Retailing 817,971 units, the car sector faced a drop of 23.7% last month. However, the deliveries of premium cars roughly remained flat over the prior-year period.