China auto market, sales up for Faw

In the first nine months of 2020, the group’s registrations grow by 8% thanks to the premium brand Hongqi and heavy vehicles. Profits rose for the entire Chinese auto sector

The positive period for car sales in China is confirmed. The last piece in this sense comes from the Faw group, the First Automobile Works, a four-wheel giant in the Asian country. In the first nine months of 2020, Faw registered 2,656,744 vehicles (from cars to heavy vehicles) with an increase of 8% on an annual basis. As for the machines sold between January and August alone, 156,717 were. A growth that is far from obvious given the coronavirus pandemic, travel restrictions and the impact on the economy: only in February, in full emergency in China, 2,638 cars were registered, or almost six thousand fewer than the average for the month winter. For group brands, from January to September, Hongqi’s car sales, an icon in China (the N501 is Xi Jinping’s car), reached 130,091 in the first nine months of the year, up 104.4% on an annual basis. The bulk of the group’s volumes, however, was made by Jiefang which produces heavy vehicles and which sold 400,000 vehicles, up 46% on an annual basis. Faw-Volkswagen, the Chinese group’s joint venture with the German carmaker, also increased both production and sales in the first three quarters of 2020, as did Faw-Toyota, another Chinese carmaker’s joint venture. incorporated with the Japanese manufacturer. However, the numbers of the two joint ventures were not disclosed. The Faw also has active collaborations with Audi and Mazda.

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geely well in September

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For another large Chinese group, Geely (also owner of Volvo), the numbers are partly good. The Hangzhou automaker in September sold 126,400 with an increase of about 11% compared to the same month of 2019. Instead, from January to September Geely put 875,500 new vehicles on the road with a decrease of 9% in the annual comparison.

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profits on the rise

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The data communicated by Faw (and partly by Geely) are in line with the general data of the four-wheeler market in China. According to the National Bureau of Statistics in the first eight months of 2020, auto industry profits increased 1.5 percent year-on-year to 308.48 billion yuan (about $ 45.3 billion), an improvement on to the 5.9% drop recorded in the January-July period. The Chinese market, after being hit hard by the effects of Covid-19, began to recover starting as early as March-April. In 2019, 24,464,235 vehicles (including cars) were sold in China, a decrease of 9.42% compared to the previous year.

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