Gasgoo.com (Shanghai November 21) - The luxury automobile market has been slowing down since the end of September, the Beijing Daily reported the Director of China Automobile Dealers Association's marketing division Su Hui as saying. Despite sales falling across the board over the past three seasons, it was luxury vehicles sales that decreased the largest amount last month.

As the country's two representative markets, sales statistics from Beijing and Shanghai are indicative of the country as a whole. In Shanghai, only 687 luxury cars were registered in October, 41.38 percent lower than the previous month. Registration numbers for domestically made mid- to high-class vehicles fell 35.93 percent, while imports registered fell 36.87 percent. By comparison, the overall average for all vehicles registered fell 33.54 percent. Beijing registration numbers exhibited similar decreases, Mr. Su said.

Falling fortunes for small private businesses is a key factor behind the cooling luxury market. According to Mr. Su, managers and high-level executives of private companies are the primary consumers of luxury vehicles. With those businesses falling on hard times, luxury vehicles sales are taking a noticeable hit. Mr. Su also cites another reason. In recent years, owners of sought after pieces of land have been convinced by housing companies to move out at considerably high prices. These consumers have also been a major force behind luxury vehicle sales. With less and less land remaining, the number of people getting rich from these transactions has also been decreasing, which is appropriately reflected in the luxury automobile market.