Shanghai (ZXZC)- China PV retail sales volume in February is likely to plunge up to 80% compared to the year-ago period, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Besides, the PV deliveries for the first two months are estimated to slump 41% year on year under the pressure doubled by both Spring Festival holiday and coronavirus.

For the entire month of February, the average daily PV deliveries stood at 7,099 units, versus 36,361 units for the prior-year period. The number kept climbing from 811 units for the first week to 16,500 units for the fourth week with increasingly more dealerships resuming operation.

As part of measures to contain the epidemic, governments of many provinces and cities prohibited local companies to restart business before Feb. 11, meaning the auto retailing in the country slumped to an ever coldest point during the first ten days.

According to the China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA), some of dealers restarted operation from the third week and over 70% dealerships have reopened business as of the last week.

Even though dealer outlets have widely reopened their doors, the average daily retail volume in the fourth week was still far behind the year-ago level. The CPCA's data shows that 16,500 consumers per day took the PV delivery from Feb. 24 to Feb. 31, tumbling 63.5% from a year ago.

Clearly, consumers' demands were still largely curbed in spite of the sound return-to-work situation. The existing traffic restrictions and users’ concerns over safety to large degree prevented them from visiting brick-and-mortar stores in person.

Moreover, the combined PV wholesale volume for OEMs is projected to nosedive roughly 86% in Feb. As for the cumulative performance, the number may plummet around 43% over the previous year, 10 percentage points fewer than the expected level.