CBN丨China’s NEVs sales expected to top 11 million in 2024

Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.Coming up on today’s programSales at Chinese NEV makers rebounded in December;Guangdong leads the way with 18.07 million registered businesses.Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours Having become a new export spotlight for the Chinese economy, the new-energy vehicles (NEVs) industry experienced a hard-won year in 2023, with sales estimated to have hit a new high. Most automakers reported a yearly sales growth. BYD, dominating the domestic market, sold 341,043 NEVs last month, a 45 percent rise year on year, which led to full-year sales of 3.02 million units, up by 62.3 percent yearly.Li Auto met all 2023 goals by delivering 376,000 units last year and 50,353 last month, up by 182 percent and 137 percent respectively from one year ago, founder and chief executive Li Xiang said.For this year, the company is setting itself the challenge of hitting 800,000 EV sales, 113 percent higher than the performance in 2023, according to Li on social media.Nio said its full-year deliveries hit 160,038, up by 30.7 percent, after last month's figures rose 13.9 percent to 18,012. While XPeng's annual deliveries grew 14 percent yearly to 141,601, after reaching a new monthly record of 20,115 last month.Zeekr under Geely Automobile reported December sales of 13,476 units, climbing 18.9 percent yearly, and the full-year number jumped 65 percent to 118,685 vehicles.Huawei's AITO delivered 24,468 units last month, up by nearly 30 percent month on month, bringing the whole-year results to 94,380 vehicles.Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology delivered 144,155 units in 2023, up by 29 percent.Industry insiders remain optimistic about the stable market growth for NEVs in 2024, as the technologies related to NEVs are expected to continue to advance. However, they also warned that there could be fiercer competition among NEV brands, especially in the domestic market, resulting in a stronger desire to go global.It is estimated that NEV sales in 2024 could reach 11.5 million units, up from an estimated 9.4 million in 2023, according to the latest data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), expected that the NEV market will continue to maintain strong growth momentum in 2024 with sales expected to top 11 million units, a net increase of 2.3 million units, or an increase of 22 percent year-on-year. The market penetration rate could reach 40 percent, according to Cui on Monday.Meanwhile, the complete supply chain and rapid strides in technology had greatly boosted the exports of China-made NEVs. According to statistics from the CAAM, China's NEV exports stood at 1.091 million in the first 11 months of 2023, up 83.5 percent year-on-year, accounting for 24.7 percent of total automobile exports. China is estimated to ship 4.41 million vehicles from January to November, a 58 percent jump from one year ago, data from the CAAM reveals, which is higher than Japan's 3.99 million vehicles with a growth of 15 percent.Greater Bay Area, Greater futureGuangdong province has 18.07 million registered business entities as of the end of 2023, accounting for one-tenth of the country's total. Over 1.73 million new business entities were registered in the province last year, showing the highest growth rate in five years, according to the Guangdong Administration for Market Regulation. Its foreign-funded enterprises continue to rank first in the country, with more than 199,000 registered by the end of last year, accounting for a quarter of China's total. Meanwhile, efforts have been made to accelerate the connection of rules and mechanisms in the field of market supervision in the Greater Bay Area. More than 8,000 Hong Kong and Macao-funded legal entities were registered in Guangdong last year, a significant increase of 64.4 percent year-on-year, bringing the province's total to more than 96,000 by the end of 2023, up year-on-year by 15.5 percent.PricewaterhouseCoopers expected funds raised from initial public offerings in Hong Kong to rebound to over HK$100 billion this year and that the city will return to be among the top three global listing venues. The accounting firm forecasts that 80 companies will list in Hong Kong this year. Meanwhile, PwC expects three to five specialist technology companies to be listed in Hong Kong under new rules this year.Next on industry and company newsThe passenger volumes on railways, roads, waterways and airways nationwide totaled nearly 130 million from Dec 30, 2023, to Jan 1, 2024, the Ministry of Transport said on Tuesday.Searches for travel to Bangkok, capital of Thailand, surged by 200 percent on Tuesday after Thai Prime Minister announced that Thailand and China will implement a permanent visa exemption policy starting from March, data from domestic travel platform Mafengwo showed. On third-party travel app Flight Master, searches for round-trip tickets between China and Thailand jumped 3.6-fold day-on-day by 2pm Tuesday.Xiaomi Automobile, the EV unit of Chinese handset giant Xiaomi Group, said it will adopt a direct sales plus dealers model. Xiaomi Auto's sales channel will be based on a "one plus N" model, the firm announced yesterday. "One" stands for the company's self-built and self-operated delivery center, while "N" is for the agent sales and user service points, it added. Xiaomi Auto also will start recruiting for its Sales and Service Stores in 17 Chinese cities.Rongsheng Petrochemical unveiled that the Chinese private petrochemical giant and its second-largest shareholder Saudi Arabian Oil Company are in talks to buy stakes in each other’s subsidiaries. Moreover, the pair plans to partner on a new 67.5 billion yuan facility in the planning at Rongsheng.Dalian Wanda Group has offloaded more assets in an effort to raise money amid liquidity crisis. Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group sold four more of its flagship Wanda Plaza commercial complexes in Suzhou, Huzhou, Shanghai and Guangzhou, according to business database Tianyancha.BYD, which is expected to topple Tesla as the world's largest electric carmaker, will reportedly give 2 billion yuan to reward dealers after reaching its annual target of three million cars sold last year. BYD will give 666 yuan per car sold at brick-and-mortar stores that managed to achieve their goals last year, sources said, adding that alternatively, the company could award dealers based on the ratio of fulfilled goals.China approved a vaccine co-developed by AstraZeneca and Sanofi to ward off respiratory syncytial virus(RSV) in infants. The National Medical Products Administration cleared the long-acting monoclonal antibody Beyfortus to prevent RSV infections in newborns, Astra said in a statement Tuesday. However, the shot isn’t expected to be available until the 2024-2025 season, the company said.Chinese make-up products are becoming popular in Asian countries as more companies expand overseas to cope with intense competition at home. China’s cosmetics exports to Thailand skyrocketed 21 times in the first 11 months last year from a year ago to 1 billion yuan, according to customs data. While that to South Korea soared 2.6 times to 935 million yuan, that to Indonesia surged 51.7-fold to 150 million yuan and that to Vietnam jumped 6.4 times to 47.6 million yuan.Switching gears to financial newsChina's biggest tea chain MIXUE and its rival Good Me have filed to go public in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. MIXUE has selected Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and UBS to arrange its listing, and is expected to raise around HK$7.8 billion. Good Me, meanwhile, has selected Goldman Sachs and UBS as its fundraising sponsors and is expected to raise around HK$2.3 billion.Wrapping up with a quick look at the stock marketChinese stocks ended mixed on Tuesday, as the benchmark Shanghai Composite added 0.2 percent while the Shenzhen Component fell 0.8 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also fell 0.9 percent and the TECH index dropped 1.8 percent.