China’s new-vehicle market contracted for the second straight month in June amid a persistent semiconductor chip shortage, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Monday.
Car and truck deliveries fell short of 1.93 million units, a decline of 16 percent from a year earlier, the top industry trade group said, drawing on a preliminary tally of members.
Demand for new light vehicles — sedans, crossovers, SUVs, multipurpose vehicles and minibuses — fell 15 percent, while sales of new commercial vehicles such as trucks and buses slumped 21 percent, according to CAAM estimates.
The trade group didn’t release an estimate for light vehicle or commercial vehicle volumes in June.
In the first quarter, new-vehicle sales in China surged 77 percent from the new coronavirus-stricken same period of 2020.
China, the world’s biggest market for new cars and light trucks, has become a bellwether for the industry’s fortunes, notably EV sales.
With vehicle production increasingly constrained by the chip shortage, sales industrywide fell in May, dipping 3.1 percent after growing 11 percent the previous month. May also marked the industry’s first decline in 14 months.
Due to a strong rebound in the first quarter, new-vehicle demand in the first five months jumped 25 percent from a year earlier to 12.8 million, according to CAAM’s estimates.