Beijing: China's automobile market, the largest in the world, contracted in May as sales declined for the second consecutive month by 4.55% to 1.9 million units, according to official data released on Wednesday.
On a yearly basis, sales volume also edged down 0.4%, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers which attributed the drop in May mainly to a large fall in passenger car sales.
Auto output stood at 1.96 million in May, down 5.56% from April, or 0.58% from the same period in 2014. Sales declined in May for the second consecutive month by 4.55% month on month to 1.9 million units.
The auto market began to contract in April, as sales declined 11% month on month to 1.99 million units, while output reduced 8.9% from March to 2.08 million, reversing increases in March.
Taken together, in the first five months sales in the world's largest auto market rose by 2.11% year on year, reaching 10.05 million units and output rose 3.18% to 10.24 million.
But growth rates for sales and output during the January- May period decelerated by 6.86 and 6.19 percentage points respectively from the same period in 2014, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Passenger car sales in May fell 3.57% from April to 1.61 million units. Among them, sales of Chinese brands tumbled 7.77% month on month to 633,100 units in May, accounting for 39.34% of the total.
Sales of German brands, which account for the lion's share of the market among foreign auto makers, dipped to 307,600 units in May, accounting for 19.11% of the total.
Multi-purpose vehicle sales in May plunged 15.88 per cent from April to 140,500 units. Overcapacity, fierce competition and purchase quota policies in first-tier cities were to blame for the auto market contraction, Liu Weidong, vice general manager of Dongfeng Motor Corp said at a forum in Chongqing on Wednesday.
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