Chinese Car Sales Down And Up
As a Chinese New Year expert, you most likely know where February auto sales in China headed: Down. Knowing how our patent-pending Chinese sales oracle, GM, did, you could also predict that there is a silver lining. And so it happened.
Chinese car sales were down 13.6 percent in February, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers CAAM says. However, Chinese New Year threw everything out of whack. One need to look at January and February, and for the two months, sales rose 14.7 percent.
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.
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We offer this picture of a Chinese license plate thief as proof sales are down - and up.
The silver lining is that GM increased China market share during this period.
Last year, the Chinese New Year was in January, and car sales boomed in February, despite it being a short month. This year it was in February, but does that mean March will boom, or did we see a booming January in anticipation of the February festivities?
Not to worry. Qingming tomb sweeping is just around the corner, and that should liven up the market considerably.