In terms of year-over-year performance, sales of passenger cars in China are flat at 1.32 million; aggregate 2012 year-to-date sales are only up +6.7% on a year-over-year basis.
China’s automobile trade group, the Chinese Association of Automobile Manufacturers, is blaming the slowdown on the tensions with Japan. While that makes sense, if you compare car sales to Chinese GDP, you can see that there’s a correlation between sales and economic growth. Vehicle sales are now below economic growth, highlighting the weakness in the consumption economy.
