Beijing is confirmed as the world's first place for the car for the second consecutive year. In the People's Republic, sales of all vehicles increased by 13,9 percent to 21,98 million units last year, well above expectations. This was announced by the Chinese Automobile Manufacturers Association. In detail, the compact and SUV segment recorded a +16% to 17,93 million units.
The latter figure is clearly higher than the forecasts of the association, which initially expected a progression of 7%, after two years of weaker growth.
The recovery of small car sales in 2013 was thanks to the flashback with the Japanese brands (Toyota, Nissan and Honda), whose results in 2012 had suffered from anti-Japanese sentiment linked to the territorial conflict over the Senkaku Islands (the 11 September 2012 the Tokyo government had purchased three of the five islands of the archipelago for 21 million euros).
In the ranking of best-selling cars in China, first place goes to General Motors (+11% with 3,16 million vehicles sold). Then it's up to Volkswagen (2,96 million). But the strongest growth is from Ford, which thanks to the Focus has seen sales jump by 49% to 935813 units, overtaking Toyota.
