Auto sales drop in Guangzhou  

综述：广州汽车销量明显下降 中高档车受影响小

广州实施汽车“限牌令”两个多月来，汽车销售量下降超五成，中高端车型受影响相对较小。记者连日走访广州城中汽车交易市场了解到，由于“4S店”并不单靠整车销售获得盈利，目前情况未至于太糟糕。

Guangzhou (CNS) – Overall auto sales dropped by 50 percent in the past two months since the local government limited car registrations, according to automotive 4S shops in the capital of Guangdong Province on Sunday.

People can only buy cars with lower engine displacements than what they owned before, so most citizens bought cars with higher engine displacements their first time around, which hurt sales of fuel-saving cars, said a salesman in the city's northern Baiyun District.

Generally speaking, auto sales at 4S shops contribute less than 20 percent to their total profit, so their businesses haven't been much affected, an insider said.

According to a salesman at a Volkswagen 4S shop, they have accumulated so many clients that revenue from repairs, components sales and insurance will soon compensate for the drop in sales.

Guangzhou began limiting car registrations on July 1 of this year, introducing public auctions and a lottery to grant 120,000 new license plates.