Shanghai (ZXZC)- Last month, automakers in China sold a total of 219,930 locally-produced PVs (referring to cars, MPVs, SUVs and minibuses), which were 82.1% less than that of a year ago, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). That is to be expected as the association previously forecasted a year-on-year plunge of over 80% in Feb. PV sales.

To help dealerships weather the virus-hit period, a great deal of OEMs have lowered or even cancelled the monthly wholesale targets for their dealers, partially leading to the incredibly low wholesale volume. Moreover, the CPCA also imputed the unpleasant paper number to factors like OEMs’ low inventories, logistics hampered, the bleak return-to-work situation, and sluggish on-site shopping of consumers, of which the latter three all discouraged dealers from purchasing vehicles from OEMs.

For the first two months, the combined PV wholesale volume dropped 44% to 1,836,657 units. The number slid 21.6% in January, while the Lunar New Year holiday should be more blamed then than the coronavirus outbreak.

Coronavirus, the black swan of 2020, has sent shock waves through all walks of life. To contain the epidemic, most automakers and supplies delayed their business resumption, and workers were hindered from returning to their posts on time. Notably, companies in Hubei Province, whose capital is the epicenter and one of most important automobile bases in China, are required to remain their doors shut until March 10. The direct consequence is that the country’s PV outputs tumbled 80.9% over a year earlier to only 216,041 units.

The epidemic also froze users' car-buying demands. Homegrown PV retail sales in Feb. slumped 78.6% year over year to 256,608 units. The steep decrease was formed on the basis of a small base number as the prior-year period contained a Spring Festival holiday. Thus, we can find out that the outbreak brought much more negative effects than that of the holiday.

In addition, the license plate registration was also suspended in some regions due to the virus reason, so that the vehicle delivery was correspondingly postponed.

Compared to January, the landscape of the top 10 automakers by monthly PV wholesale volume looks quite different. FAW-Volkswagen was still the champion, while SAIC's two joint ventures fail to defend the top 3 honor. The runner-up place was replaced by Geely Auto, and Chery Automobile, which was not on the top 10 list a month earlier, for the first time took the second runner-up place.

The seventh to ninth places were captured by SAIC Motor's three subsidiaries. However, SAIC-GM was not one of them. Beijing Benz surged to the sixth place, the only dedicated premium vehicle manufacturer.

Regarding the prospect for the whole year, the CPCA said the annual PV deliveries is projected to shrink 8% year on year if no powerful incentive policies put forward at the nation level, 3 percentage points lower than the former prediction.