'Car-driving society' to spur sales
By Emily Ford |
00:24 UTC+8 March 16, 2012
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA'S unstoppable love affair with cars will lead to a formidable 30 million vehicles being sold annually by 2020, making it overwhelmingly the largest car market in the world, new forecasts reveal.
The country's current auto sales of 17 million a year, already the highest of any country, will leap 73 percent in the next eight years as swaths of first-time drivers take to the roads, according to data from IHS Global Insight, a European research firm. Analysts said that rising personal incomes and spreading urbanization creating better roads would spur millions of new motorists, particularly in third- and fourth-tier cities, where car use is still extremely low.
Sheng Ye, an automotive expert at the IPSOS research group in Shanghai, said: "Bejing and Shanghai set the benchmark for car use and as their purchasing power grows, the third- and fourth-tier cities will catch up and want to copy them. Truly, it's a lifestyle thing. We have become a car-driving society."
Gansu and Hunan provinces, for example, have fewer than 40 cars per 1,000 population, compared with more than 400 cars per 1,000 people in the US. Under the 12th Five-Year Plan, west China will account for more than two-thirds of government investment in road-building, encouraging car use, Sheng said.
James Chao, IHS's automotive consulting director, said the pace of growth of the auto market in China in the next decade would be "truly breathtaking" although at about 6 percent a year is nonetheless slower than during the past decade. "For example, the density of vehicles in the western region of China is especially low but incomes are expected to rise because of the government's investment initiatives," Chao said.
By the end of this year Chinese mainland may sell more cars than all of Europe put together: an expected 19.21 million vehicles, versus Europe's forecast for 18.15 million.
The country's current auto sales of 17 million a year, already the highest of any country, will leap 73 percent in the next eight years as swaths of first-time drivers take to the roads, according to data from IHS Global Insight, a European research firm. Analysts said that rising personal incomes and spreading urbanization creating better roads would spur millions of new motorists, particularly in third- and fourth-tier cities, where car use is still extremely low.
Sheng Ye, an automotive expert at the IPSOS research group in Shanghai, said: "Bejing and Shanghai set the benchmark for car use and as their purchasing power grows, the third- and fourth-tier cities will catch up and want to copy them. Truly, it's a lifestyle thing. We have become a car-driving society."
Gansu and Hunan provinces, for example, have fewer than 40 cars per 1,000 population, compared with more than 400 cars per 1,000 people in the US. Under the 12th Five-Year Plan, west China will account for more than two-thirds of government investment in road-building, encouraging car use, Sheng said.
James Chao, IHS's automotive consulting director, said the pace of growth of the auto market in China in the next decade would be "truly breathtaking" although at about 6 percent a year is nonetheless slower than during the past decade. "For example, the density of vehicles in the western region of China is especially low but incomes are expected to rise because of the government's investment initiatives," Chao said.
By the end of this year Chinese mainland may sell more cars than all of Europe put together: an expected 19.21 million vehicles, versus Europe's forecast for 18.15 million.
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