(Yicai) Feb. 8 -- China's total automobile sales jumped nearly 48 percent last month, mainly thanks to new-year promotions and last year's low base, according to the latest official statistics.

Some 2.44 million cars were sold in China in January, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed yesterday. Of them, 2.12 million units were passenger vehicles, and 324,000 were commercial vehicles, up 44 percent and 80 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.

Over 60 percent of the passenger cars sold last month were of Chinese brands, up 8.8 percentage points from the same period last year. Sales of passenger vehicles of US and French brands fell, while those of German, Japanese, and South Korean brands rose.

Some 729,000 of the cars sold in China in January were new energy vehicles, up 79 percent from a year earlier, according to CAAM data. NEVs occupied a nearly 30 percent share of China's automobile market in the period.

NEVs will seize half of the market by 2026, which is about 10 years ahead of expectations, Miao Wei, deputy director of the economic committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former minister for industry and information technology, said in January last year.

The top 10 NEV makers in China sold 630,000 cars last month, up 78 percent from a year earlier and accounting for 86 percent of the country's total NEV sales, down 0.4 percentage points in the period, data from the CAAM also showed.

China produced 2.41 million autos last month, up over 51 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the CAAM. Of them, 787,000 units were NEVs, up 85 percent.

In January, China exported 443,000 cars, down 11 percent from December but up 47 percent from a year earlier. Chinese automaker Chery Automobile ranked first by exporting about 90,000 units, up 72 percent from a year earlier. BYD exported 37,000 units, an over two-fold increase from a year ago, achieving the biggest growth among Chinese car exporters.

Editor: Futura Costaglione