Preliminary figures show auto sales in China reached about 1.03 million in March, exceeding U.S. sales for the third month in a row, state media reports said Wednesday.
Sales data from 14 major auto makers, accounting for roughly 90 percent of total sales, totaled 1.026 million, the Shanghai Securities News and other state-run newspapers said, citing Chen Bin, head of the Department of Industry at China's main economic planning agency.
Full industry data due to be released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers in coming days could push March auto sales in China, the world's second-largest auto market, to a monthly record, the report said.
China's industrywide auto sales in March 2008 totaled 1.06 million, it said.
Americans bought 857,735 new vehicles in March, down 37 percent from the 1.36 million sold in the same month a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp.
But a 25 percent jump in U.S. sales from February raised hopes that the worst may be over for an industry battered by global economic malaise and financial catastrophe.
China is bound to eventually overtake the U.S. as the world's largest auto market, and the recent developments have accelerated that trend, with Chinese vehicle sales in January and February exceeding U.S. monthly sales for the first time ever.
China's first-quarter sales may exceed those in the U.S., Chen told a shipbuilding conference in Beijing. Sales for the full year are forecast to exceed 10 million units for the first time ever.
