China's monthly auto sales overtake US for first time

China's monthly vehicle sales surpassed those in the United States for the first time in January, moving this country closer to becoming the world's biggest auto market, data released today showed.

With its growing middle class and vast potential as a consumer market, China is vital for General Motors, Volkswagen and Toyota as they count on demand here to offset weakness in the US and elsewhere.

But China's ascent in the global auto market has been hastened by the plunge in US auto sales, which tumbled 37 per cent in January to a 26-year low of 656,976 units.

Chinese vehicle sales also have cooled, but hardly as dramatically. In January, 735,000 vehicles were sold, down 14.4 per cent from a monthly record 860,000 last January, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said.

Mike DiGiovanni, General Motors Corp's executive director of global market and industry analysis, said last week he expected Chinese auto sales could hit 10.7 million units in 2009, more than his estimate of 9.8 million unit sales in the US this year.

Auto-data forecasts 2009 US sales at 9.57 million.

China's vehicle market has grown dramatically in recent years, overtaking Japan in 2006 to become the world's second-largest by annual sales. With 1.3 billion people, China will inevitably leapfrog the US, with a population of 300 million, into the No 1 spot, industry experts say.