China’s vehicle production reached 14.05 million units in the first half of 2018, up 4.2 percent from the same period last year, according to statistics released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) on July 11.

A total of 14.06 million vehicles were sold in the country so far this year, 5.6 percent more than a year ago.

Assistant secretary of CAAM, Chen Shihua, attributed the high growth of vehicle sales in the first six months to the relatively low figure in the same period last year, as well as the growing domestic demand for commercial vehicles.

A total of 963,000 sedans were sold, up 2.5 percent sequentially and 9.1 percent year-on-year. SUV sales saw a 0.5 percent drop from a year ago, down to 738,000 units. It is the first negative growth of SUV sales in recent years.

Xu Haidong, CAAM assistant secretary explained that Chinese brands decided to shift their focus from SUV to sedan manufacturing at the end of 2017, and consumers have also shown growing interest in sedans over SUVs because of higher levels of comfort.

It is worth mentioning that 5.1 million units of the passenger vehicles manufactured by Chinese brands were sold in the first half of 2018, up 3.4 percent year-on-year and accounting for 43.3 percent of the market share.

Xu is positive about the new energy vehicle (NEV) sales, saying they are expected to experience a boost in the next six months. A total of 412,000 NEVs have been sold so far since 2018, increasing 111.6 percent from a year ago.

“We believe that the target of one million NEV sales will definitely be reached this year,” Xu said.