China locally-produced PV retail sales in Feb. likely to soar 377% YoY

The retail sales of locally-produced PVs (referring to car, SUVs and MPVs) in China are forecasted to reach around 1.19 million units in February, rocketing 377% year on year and sliding 44.9% month on month, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

The CPCA said the PV deliveries in February will decrease over a month ago due to the Chinese New Year holiday, while represented a three-digit increase over the low base for the coronavirus-hit February 2020.

As many local governments called on people to stay where they live and work during the holiday, the car shopping demands from migrant works returning to their hometowns were somewhat whittled down. Nevertheless, the reduced personnel flow also makes the car consumption more possible to see a rapid recovery after the holiday, said the association.

As for weekly sales performance, the CPCA adopted the data of Feb. 2018 as the base for comparison as the month was not affected by the coronavirus pandemic and contained a Spring Festival holiday that fell in the period close to that of 2020. For the first and second weeks of Feb. 2021, the daily PV retail sales of main automakers stood at 252,000 units and 177,000 units respectively, dropping 24% and 26.3% compared to the same period three years ago. The daily volumes for the third and fourth weeks are expected to be 170,000 units and 300,000 units, shrinking 2.9% and 7.8%.

In Jan. 2021, there were roughly 2.16 million PVs delivered across China, representing a vigorous growth of 25.7%. The CPCA said the performance was better than expected. Last month, the sporadic coronavirus cases resurged in some regions, while they were all well controlled finally. The global chip shortage to some degree influenced the domestic car production, but the impact on deliveries has not emerged yet and the short-term effect on market would be limited.