BEIJING: Auto sales in China, the world's largest car market, fell 0.5 percent year-on-year to 1.99 million vehicles in April, an industry group said Monday.
For the first four months of the year, auto sales increased 2.8 percent on the same period last year to 8.14 million vehicles, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
The fall in April compared with a rise of 3.3 percent in March, CAAM figures showed.
Slowing economic growth, limits by some cities on vehicle numbers and a prolonged corruption crackdown affecting the luxury segment have all had an impact on sales in China.
"This year is relatively special... because we are under the new normal and the difficulties... were sharply reflected in the auto industry," Yao Jie, a vice secretary general of the CAAM, told reporters at a briefing.
The "new normal" is a term frequently used by government officials to refer to China's slower but hopefully more sustainable growth.
Foreign brands have generally held up well despite China's economic downturn, due to consumer perceptions of better quality.
But they lost passenger car market share in April when, Chinese brands sold 686,400 units, up 14.3 percent year-on-year and accounting for 41.1 percent of the total, with growth mainly driven by SUVs, CAAM data showed.
German, Japanese and US brands respectively held 18.6 percent, 16.5 percent and 10.8 percent of the market while South Korean and French marques had a combined 12.7 percent, according to CAAM.
Japanese auto maker Honda said last week it sold 71,546 units in China in April, up 11.7 percent year-on-year.
Sales by Japanese giant Toyota, the world's biggest vehicle manufacturer, rose by 7.8 percent to more than 92,600 units last month, CAAM said last week, citing the company's figures.
US firm Ford sold 96,889 vehicles in the country in April, almost unchanged on 2014 but pushing year-to-date sales to 393,714 vehicles, an increase of seven percent from the same period last year, it said last week.
General Motors and its joint ventures sold 258,484 vehicles last month in China, down 0.4 percent year-on-year, the company said last week.
China's auto sales reached 23.49 million vehicles last year, jumping 6.9 percent from 2013.
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