China is by far the most important single market for German automakers.
(Photo: imago images/VCG)
Beijing In China, car sales fell in March. The number of vehicles sold to end customers fell by 10.9 percent year-on-year to 1.61 million, the industry association PCA (China Passenger Car Association) announced on Monday in Beijing. In the previous month, sales had temporarily increased year-on-year. In the months before, sales had fallen in double-digit percentages, mainly because of the delivery problems caused by chip bottlenecks.
Compared to the previous month, vehicle sales in March rose by a good quarter. However, this was due to the fact that the Chinese New Year with its public holidays fell in February and therefore significantly fewer vehicles were sold to end customers. In January, dealers had sold around 2.1 million cars.
In March, however, significantly more electric and hybrid cars were sold. The number of vehicles sold with alternative drives rose by almost 138 percent year-on-year to 445,000 units. Tesla delivered the highest number of electric vehicles from its Chinese plant since December, despite a six-day shutdown due to production bottlenecks and pandemic-related disruptions.
In its survey, the PCA association measures sales of passenger cars, SUVs, minivans and small commercial vehicles to end customers. For the German car manufacturers BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, China is by far the most important single market.
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