【英语财经】中国引领新兴市场汽车销量复苏 EM car sales rise for second straight month

Car sales in emerging markets have jumped sharply in the past two months, raising hopes that the worst of the EM economic slowdown could have passed.

However, the bounce was largely driven by a recovery in China’s auto market, with car sales still in freefall in recession-hit Brazil and weak in India and Indonesia.

Across emerging markets, auto sales rose at a seasonally adjusted 3.7 per cent month-on-month rate in September, building on a 2.7 per cent rise in August, according to country-by-country data collated by JPMorgan.

As a result, EM-wide sales are now running at an seasonally adjusted annual rate of 33m, up from a low of 31m in July and partially reversing a sharp slide from a peak of almost 38m in late 2014 (see the first chart).

“The pick-up in auto sales is a good omen for broader retail sales,” says David Hensley, analyst at JPMorgan, of a sector that may also be a good indicator of the availability of consumer credit.

However, a closer look at the data suggest the underlying picture is less clear-cut.

China was the star performer, reporting a 7.1 per cent month-on-month rise in September, extending a 2.5 per cent increase in August and raising its seasonally adjusted annual rate to 20.3m units, from a low of 18.5m in July.

This allowed the country to retain its position as the world’s largest car market, as the second chart shows.

Strip out China and the picture looks less impressive. Car sales in the rest of EM land remain in the doldrums, although they have perhaps stabilised after sliding precipitously since the start of 2013, even as developed world sales ex-US have motored ahead (see the third chart).

“The dynamics in the EM ex-China group are less encouraging,” says Mr Hensley, who noted that a “large share” of the 15 per cent slide in car sales since January 2013 owed to deterioration in Brazil and Russia, “where recessions produced outsized drops in durable goods expenditures”.

Since the start of this year, auto sales in Brazil have fallen 38 per cent to an annualised rate of 2.4m, following a further 3.7 per cent month-on-month slide in September.

Russia has experienced a sharper drop still, with sales falling 42 per cent this year to an annualised rate of 1.6m. However, the figures suggest the Russian market may have plateaued, with sales edging up in recent months, as the final chart shows.

Sales are also on a broadly upward path in Poland, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea, while even Argentina has managed month-on-month sales growth in four of the past five months.

As for China, it remains unclear how much should be read into the country’s nascent auto sales recovery.

MNI Indicators, a subsidiary of Deutsche B?rse, which produces a monthly China Auto Purchase Sentiment Report, suggests that discounting by car retailers and falling petrol prices, as well as “a perception of better quality and choice of vehicles,” have buoyed the market.

If so, this suggests any read-through from higher car sales to broader strength in consumer demand may be limited.

MNI’s latest report, released last week, outlined a rise in its car purchase expectations index, a measure of whether consumers think it is a good time to buy a car.

However, the proportion of respondents saying they actually planned to buy a car in the next 12 months fell from 18.7 per cent in August to 14.3 per cent.

Interestingly, MNI found a small increase in people saying they planned to buy their first car, but the proportion of existing car owners intending to add an additional vehicle in the coming year “plummeted” from 38.6 per cent in July, to 18.3 per cent.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economist at Capital Economics, says auto sales data are notoriously volatile, but does see signs of “a bit of a pick-up in terms of the consumer market in China”.

Although Capital Economics estimates that economic growth in China is probably about 4.5 per cent, comfortably below the 6.9 per cent official figure, Mr Evans-Pritchard argues that the country’s service sector data are more reliable than those for industrial activity.

“Growth in passenger traffic, property sales and retail sales all picked up in the third quarter,” he says. “The labour market is quite tight and an increased share of the economy is going to households,” bolstering consumption.

Mr Evans-Pritchard points to the fact that wage growth for migrants, the most marginal slice of the labour force, is running at almost 10 per cent (compared with inflation of 1.6 per cent) as an indicator that households have more cash to spend.

过去两个月，新兴市场汽车销量大幅上升，这燃起了人们对新兴市场经济放缓最坏时期可能已经过去的希望。

但此番反弹很大程度上由中国汽车市场复苏驱动，在遭遇经济衰退的巴西，汽车销量仍处于自由落体式下滑状态，而印度、印度尼西亚的销售也呈现疲软态势。

摩根大通(JP Morgan)逐国收集的数据显示，新兴市场整体经季节性因素调整后的汽车销量月度环比增长率在8月为2.7%，9月更上一层楼，为3.7%。

因此，新兴市场整体经季节性因素调整后的年化汽车销量现在为3300万辆，比7月份3100万辆的低点有所上升，在一定程度上逆转了从2014年末将近3800万辆的峰值急剧下滑的势头（见图1）。

摩根大通分析师大卫?亨斯利(David Hensley)称：“汽车销量回升对于更广泛的零售销售是一个好兆头。”汽车业或许也是消费信贷可得性的一个很好的风向标。

然而，细看这些数据可以发现，实际情况并非那么明确。

中国汽车销售的表现是明星级的，9月环比增长7.1%（扩大了8月2.5%的增幅），经季节调整后的年化销量从7月1850万辆的低点升至2030万辆。

这使中国得以继续保持世界最大汽车市场的地位（正如图2所示）。

如果刨除中国的话，形势看起来就不那么令人印象深刻了。新兴市场其他地区的汽车销售依然低迷，尽管在经历自2013年初开始的急剧下滑后，这些地区也许已经趋稳。发达国家（刨除美国）的销量已赶超了它们（见图3）。

图1

亨斯利说：“整个新兴市场（除中国以外）的活力并不令人乐观。”他指出，自2013年1月以来除中国以外新兴市场汽车销量15%的下滑，“大部分”应归因于巴西、俄罗斯“经济衰退使得耐用品支出大幅下降”。

自今年初以来，巴西汽车销量已下降38%，年化销量为240万辆，9月销量环比进一步下滑3.7%。

俄罗斯经历了更大的下跌，今年汽车销量下降42%，年化销量为160万辆。然而，数据显示，俄罗斯市场或许已经趋稳，近几个月销售逐渐有所回升（见图4）。

图2

在波兰、新加坡、马来西亚及韩国，汽车销售也处于明显上升之势，就连阿根廷都在过去5个月中的4个月维持了环比销售增长。

对中国而言，目前尚不清楚应该对其萌芽中的汽车销售复苏进行多大程度的解读。

每月编制《中国购车情绪报告》(China Auto Purchase Sentiment Report)的德意志交易所(Deutsche B?rse)旗下的MNI指数(MNI Indicators)认为，汽车零售商打折、汽油价格下跌以及“消费者认为汽车质量提高、选择变多”等因素提振了中国市场。

图3

如果这样的话，这表明，任何解读——从汽车销量提升到消费者需求广泛增强——都可能是有限的。

MNI在其上周发布的最新报告中，勾勒出购车预期指数上升的趋势。该指数衡量消费者是否认为现在为购车的好时机。

然而，称自己打算在未来12个月内购车的受访者的比例从8月的18.7%降至了14.3%。

有趣的是，MNI发现，称计划购买自己第一辆车的受访者有小幅增加，但是，打算在未来一年购置新车的现有车主比例从7月的38.6%“暴跌”至18.3%。

凯投宏观(Capital Economics)中国经济学家朱利安?埃文斯-普里查德(Julian Evans-Pritchard)表示，汽车销售数据出了名的不稳定，但的确可以看出一些迹象——“中国消费市场在一点点回升”。

图4

尽管凯投宏观估计中国经济增速可能只有约4.5%（远低于6.9%的官方数据），但埃文斯-普里查德认为，中国服务业的数据比工业活动数据更可靠。

“客运、房地产销售及零售销售增长在第三季度都有所回升，”他说，“劳动力市场相当紧张，中国经济中更大的份额由（支撑消费的）家庭贡献。”

埃文斯-普里查德指出，农民工（劳动力大军中最边缘的群体）工资增速接近10%（而通胀率为1.6%），这意味着家庭有更多现金可以消费。

译者/陈隆祥