China In October 2012: Getting Tired, Market Flat

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

End of October, China’s formerly white-hot auto industry basically is where it was last year. January through October, production of cars and commercial vehicles is down 0.42 percent, sales are up 0.19 percent, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers CAAM says.

15.7 million units were sold for the year so far, same as last year. In October, production was down 4.48 percent to 1.587 million, sales made up for it by rising 5.32 percent to 1.606 million.

The industry had hoped for a (for Chinese tastes) slight increase of between 5 and 7 percent for the year, but so far, it doesn’t seem to be happening. The industry is treading water.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments
Join the conversation
 3 comments
  • Th009 Th009 on Nov 11, 2012

    Production down 4.48%, sales up 5.32% -- looks like an increase of about 150K units in imported models. And it's passenger cars that are up, commercial vehicles are the ones that are hit. From previous posts, we know Ford was up 50%, Audi up 30%, VW up over 20%, GM up 15%. The Japanese manufacturers are still down -- but are the domestics also losing market share?

    • Spw Spw on Nov 11, 2012

      probably has to do with their stock, not imported models... remember that the average is at least 60 days and it takes a while to cars to actually arrive.

  • Robert Gordon Robert Gordon on Nov 11, 2012

    I feel like the guys in the photo after reading this.

Next