In First Quarter of 2015 Car Imports and Exports both Fall

The general administration of customs recently released data, in the first quarter of 2015, imported motor vehicles (including chassis, the same below) reached 260,000, down by 16.3% year on year, the amount of the imported motor vehicles $10.647 billion, down by 21.7%; the imported auto parts reached $6.509, down by 10.0%. The exported car reached 190,000, down by 5.7%, the amount of the exported car $2.735 billion, an increase of 2.4%; the auto parts exports amounted to $10.906 billion, an increase of 0.1%.

There are sharp distinctions between automobile import and export. The decreasing amplitude of the imported vehicle number is more than the decreasing amplitude of the exported vehicle number, but the imported vehicle is 70,000 more than the exported vehicle; the declining amplitude of imports is more than 20%, the exports slightly increase, the deficit amounts to $7.914 billion. However, the auto parts export situation is much better than imports, the amount of surplus reaches $4.397 billion.

For automobile imports, in January and March, 100,000 were imported, in February 60,000 imported. Due to the Spring Festival, it is a normal condition. For automobile exports, in January 72,000 were exported, in February 60,000 exported, exports in March was slightly lower than exports in February.

China's auto exports have greater progress, ranging from exclusively exporting the commercial vehicle to exporting the passenger car, which accounts for 60 percent of total auto exports, exporting to more countries, ranging from exporting CBU to exporting the CKD parts. However, according to the first quarter’s automobile imports and exports, there’s still a gap between China’s auto and the auto of other countries like EU, US, Japan and South Korea, the international competitiveness of China’s auto is behind other countries, from the first quarter’s vehicle trading volume and value, we can know, one exported auto price is only $14,400 on average, while the average price of imported auto reaches $41,000.

In the first quarter, the imported car market was in downturn. According to the imported car market information joint committee feedback, the imported car registration number was much lower than imports, the current inventory was close to 4.8 months, hitting a record, the average sales price declines by 67,000 yuan, a decrease of 10.5%.

As part of the import car market, parallel imported cars lead to “the castle in the air”. Because multinational companies’ profit is falling, parallel imported cars share the market of authorized imported auto, the growth of parallel imported cars is impacted, for example, the BMW X5 and X63.0T has been authorized channels to sell in China, and their displacement is 2.979L, while the displacement of the parallel imported cars reaches 3.001L, vehicle excise duty and VAT of parallel imported cars will increase; the manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz and Land Rover prohibits sales across the region in order to suppress the parallel import business; Toyota desires to take domestic strategy to reduce vehicle prices to significantly narrow the spreads; vendors set up barriers of cash payment for parallel import car buyers, and so on.
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