Beijing (ZXZC)- Vehicle sales in China declined for a fourth consecutive month in August, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

Last month, new vehicle sales in China declined 17.8% from a year ago to 1.799 million vehicles and dropped 3.5% from the previous month, and also decreased 8.2% when compared with the same month of 2019. The monthly production volume was down 18.7% year on year and 7.4% month on month to 1.725 million vehicles. In July, the sales decrease was 11.9%. 

By the end of August, China has produced a total of 16.166 million vehicles for this year, increasing by 11.9% year on year while the year-to-date sales grew by 13.7% versus the same period of last year to 16.556 million vehicles. Compared with the same period of 2019, sales and production of the first eight months were up 1.3% and 2.7% respectively, 2.1 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points less compared with the first seven months.

Worldwide chip shortage continued to influence the production and sales of passenger vehicles in the largest auto market. In August, China made 1.497 million and sold 1.552 million passenger vehicles, representing a respective decrease of 11.9% and 11.7% from a year earlier, 1.2 percentage points and 4.7 percentage points more than July.

Automakers’ passenger vehicle inventory declined 5.2% from 476,000 vehicles at the beginning of the month to 452,000 vehicles at the end of the month.

Chip shortage also dented the production of luxury vehicles, whose monthly sales dropped 13.9% year on year to 245,000 vehicles. By the end of August, the year-to-date luxury vehicle sales amounted to 2.236 million vehicles, jumping 29.2% from a year ago, 13.2 percentage points more than the overall passenger vehicle segment’s change.

Local Chinese brands continued to gain more market share in passenger vehicle segment. In August, Chinese brands sold 704,000 vehicles, representing a year-on-year increase of 6.8%. Their market share increased by 7.8 percentage points to 45.3% in August, while the share of the year-to-date sales occupied 42.8% of the country’s total passenger market, up by 6.5 percentage points.

Monthly production and sales of commercial vehicles were 229,000 and 247,000 respectively, down by 46.2% and 42.8% year on year and down 27.5% and 20.9% month over month. The growth of year-to-date production and sales narrowed by 7 and 7.4 percentage points respectively to only 0.6% and 5.5%. The association expects the annual sales of commercial vehicle will see negative growth this year.

Monthly new energy vehicle (NEV) production and sales surpassed 300,000 vehicles for the first time. According to the association, the monthly sales of NEVs jumped over 180% year on year to 321,000 vehicles, including 265,000 battery electric vehicles and 56,000 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

In the first eight months of this year, NEV sales accounted for nearly 11% of the total sales with year-to-date sales reaching 1.799 million vehicles. With the strong momentum, the country is likely to realize the target that NEV will account for 20% of the total market share by 2025 ahead of schedule, the association said.