China’s automobile import market is expected to grow 20% in 2011, with about 800,000 vehicles to be registered, and higher than the estimated growth rate of the domestically-made vehicles, reported China Youth Daily, citing the report released by China Automobile Trading Co. (CATC).

In the first ten months of this year, China imported 604,000 vehicles, up 132.7% from the same period last year; while the number of imported vehicles obtaining license plates totaled 522,000, a year-on-year increase of 91.7%. Registered vehicles for the whole year are expected to surpass 650,000 units, the report said.

The rapid growth of vehicle imports is closely related to multinational corporations’ strategic adjustment in the China market. From January to October, Mercedes-Benz had 75,000 imported vehicles registered and sold 75,000 locally made vehicles in China. In the mean time, the other German automaker BMW sold 41,000 locally produced vehicles and saw 57,000 units of its imported vehicles get registered.

The sport utility vehicle (SUV) sector - the dominating segment in China’s automotive market with 57.3% market share, also had impressive growth in the period, witnessing its market share exceeding 60% in both September and October.

Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lexus took the top three spots in the list of China’s top 10 imported car brands by sales during January and October, of which the market share of the Mercedes-Benz and Lexus brands rose by 2.4% and 2.8% respectively. The concentration degree of the top ten brands reached 70.7% at the time, the report said.

China had imported more small-displacement vehicles (including vehicles with 3.0L engine) in the first ten months, to respond positively to the national policy of environmental protection and energy saving. Imported vehicles with 1.5L-2.5L engines were particularly favored by the Chinese consumers, grabbing market share 27.9%, which has propelled overall sales growth of the luxury brands and outpaced the growth of China's entire automobile import market.