Chinese Vehicle Market starts 2024 up in double-digit. Net of monthly effects of the Lunar New Year holiday, Year to Date February figures at 3.6 million represent a huge +13.6%, the fastest growing speed in 5 years.
Market Trend and Outlook
Light vehicles market (cars + light commercial vehicles) in China is the largest worldwide and the recent years stagnation is influencing the global market.
The start of 2024 was positive, while the Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, resulting on sales shifted from February to January (last year the Lunar holiday was in January).
While in February sales at 1.37 million were down 18.8%, the Year to Date figures at 3.6 million represent a huge +13.6%, the fastest growing speed in 5 years.
The Chinese auto market has shown signs of a strong growth in 2024, although sales in February fell after a 4th month positive trend, reporting 1.39 million new sales (-17.5%). YTD sales reach 3.62 units (+14.3%).
Looking at cumulative data up to February 2024, brand-wise Volkswagen was on top with 324.647 sales (15.0%) defending the leadership from the attach of the EV leader, BYD, second with 287.849 sales (-4.8%).
Toyota was in third place with 220.938 (-2.7%) followed by Changan with 208.925 (+18.7%), Geely -up 1 spot- with 204,307 sales (+49.2%) and Honda -down 1 spot- with 175.041 (+27.4%).
In 7th place ranks Wuling with 131,667 sales (+8.5%), followed by BMW -up 1 spot- with 123.604 (+4.4%), Chery -up 6 spots- with 105.500 (+98.6%) and, in 10th place, Mercedes -down 2 spots- with 105.449 sales (-11.9%).
To see the best selling ranking in China, you can refer to the dedicated article. We can anticipate that the leader, so far this year, is
Best selling car models in China is the CHANGAN CS75 with 59,235 sales (+69.1%) followed by BYD Qin Plus with 57.095 (+46.3%) and Tesla Model Y with 52.449 (+32.1%)
Medium-Term Market Trend
The Chinese vehicle market not only is the largest in the world but represents near 30% of global sales and over 75% of global EVs sales.
The market booming phase ended already few years ago, with the all time record hit in 2017 with over 28.4 million sales (car passengers, including import, and light commercial vehicles).
Declining in the three following years at a below 25 million level, in the 2021-2023 the market was almost stable, ending the 2023 at 25.1 million. It is clear that in the future the market will not report further robust growth, considering the level of saturation and the replacement of combustion vehicles with electric will remain the key factor for development.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.
