
Senior Advisor Research
Tel.: +44 7740 823049
Email: ashvin.chotai@stonemountain-capital.com
In 2013, total vehicle demand, including passenger cars and commercial vehicles, in China stood at around 22.2 million units. This is over a quarter of global vehicle demand and makes China’s vehicle market around 40% larger the US market. China overtook the US to become the largest market for automobiles in 2009.
Foreign automakers, although having to operate via joint ventures, control over 70% of passenger car demand and many now rely heavily on China to support their global growth ambitions. Thus, the significance of developments in China on the global auto industry is not difficult to see.
In the last decade, vehicle demand grew at a compound annual growth rate of over 20%. Major cities in the East Coast were the main growth engines initially but in recent years healthy support has also been coming from the spread of motorization in other provincial capitals and medium size cities.
Since the stimulus fueled boom in 2009 and 2010, growth rates have moderated considerably, but have still remained relatively healthy and so far the transition from high growth rates to more moderate growth rates has been relatively smooth.