China maintains world lead in auto sales

Chinese consumers bought 1.32 million cars in January, solidifying the country's status as the world's largest auto market.

Spurred by tax cuts and other government stimulus measures, the January figure was 18 per cent more than December's 1.1 million vehicles sold. It was also up 116 per cent from the same month of 2009, when China first overtook the U.S. in vehicle sales.

Total vehicle sales, including larger vehicles, more than doubled from 735,000 last year to 1.66 million units, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said.

U.S. auto sales rose a modest six per cent in January, but that was up from a 26-year low of 656,976 a year before.

For the year as a whole, total Chinese vehicle sales were up 45 per cent to an estimated 13.6 million in 2009, overtaking the American market as sales there languished. The auto group expects 15 million passenger vehicle sales this year.

Trade-ins encouraged

Beijing ignited sales last year with a series of policies aimed at encouraging car owners to trade in older vehicles, in many case three-wheel trucks, for more fuel-efficient small cars.

The huge year-on-year jump in January sales also reflected relatively weak sales and production a year earlier, when China's economy had slowed because of the global financial crisis.

January sales may have been buoyed by a rush to buy cars ahead of the Feb. 14 Lunar New Year, the country's biggest holiday, so analysts say sales could fall off now that the holiday is past.

"We need to keep an eye on the data for February and March," said Wei Chenggang, an analyst at Shanghai Securities in Shanghai. "Given expectations that inflation may rise, people may spend less."     

"January does not tell us what the whole year will be like, since the broader economy faces various uncertainties," the association said in a statement.