China’s auto imports in 2019 YoY downs 2%

China's full-year auto imports in 2019 declined 2% year on year to 1.086 million units, while the volume for the month of December stood at 102,000 units with a significant growth of 24%, according to Sinomach Automobile Co.,Ltd., China's largest dealer of imported vehicles.

Affected by the overall downward trend in both the auto market and the macro economy, the domestic sales volume of the new vehicles imported by authorized dealers edged down 1.8% over a year ago to 838,000 units. However, the number reached roughly 85,000 units in December, edging up 2.1% year on year and jumping 14.6% month on month.

Thanks to the relatively small base number for the prior-year period, the auto parallel imports in December 2019 surged 79% to 11,448 units, which made the annual volume total 163,200 units with a double-digit growth of 16.8%. The parallel imports accounted for 15% of the 2019 auto imports, up by 2.4 percentage points compared to 2018.

There were a total of 1,062,764 PVs imported to China throughout 2019, a year-on-year drop of 2.3%. Of those, the volumes of cars, SUVs and MPVs reached 442,611 units, 580,786 units and 39,367 units respectively, falling 4.5%, 0.7% and 0.5% over a year ago.

Nonetheless, the PV imports jumped 24.1% to 100,006 units in December with all three sectors boasting increase.

Among the top 10 brands by full-year imports, half of them achieved growth, including Tesla (226.6%), Toyota (30.8%), Lexus (25.7%), Lincoln and BMW. The other five brands that featured downturn are Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Mini and Porsche.