According to a major trade group, nearly 91% of new-car dealerships in China have opened their doors to the public again, despite the ongoing novel Coronavirus pandemic, which has kept showroom traffic at just 53% of normal levels.
Showroom traffic varies widely among car brands, as per the China Automobile Dealers Association, which looked at 8,393 franchised dealerships across the People’s Republic.
Meanwhile, dealerships operated specifically be Chinese brands reported the lowest level of showroom traffic, at 35% of what would be considered normal for this time of the year, reports Autonews Europe. Yet dealerships selling domestically-built foreign models saw those numbers climb to 54% of normal levels.
Read Also: Coronavirus Changed New Car Purchases And Transportation Use In China, Will It Happen Elsewhere?
At the same time, 9.2% of franchised dealerships remained closed today for failing to obtain approval from local governments, which require businesses to provide customers and employees alike with sufficient protective resources.
As for retail passenger car sales, they fell 47% in China during the first half of March, as the pandemic put a halt to most consumer and business activities across the country.
“Some cities are encouraging people to return to normal life, however, consumers’ confidence in car purchases is unlikely to return to normal before the end of March,” said the China Passenger Car Association.
The rest of the world continues to trail China in terms of containment, which is why businesses have only begun shutting down in countries such as those from the European Union for example. This means that the car industry is still a long way from full recovery on a global scale.
