Auto stocks were making gains on Friday afternoon with GKN performing well on the back of upbeat data from China.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said that passenger-vehicles sales jumped by 49% year-on-year to a record 1.73m units last month. According to Bloomberg estimates, analysts were looking to a figure closer to 1.5m.

The impressive growth was put down to strong demand for SUVs in the all-important pre-Lunar New Year shopping period.

Meanwhile, auto output also reached a new high in January, rocketing more than 50% year-on-year, the report said.

GKN's Driveline division is one of the world's largest manufacturers of automotive driveline components. It accounted for nearly half of the company's total revenue in the first six months of the year (ended June 30th 2012).

Some 9.0m of GKN's car and light vehicles were produced in China in the first half of the company's financial year, just under a quarter of Driveline production (41.4m). This was a 6.0% rise year-on-year.

At the time of the GKN's half-yearly report, the firm labelled China as one of the major markets that are expected to grow the fastest in 2012, along with Japan and North America.

Car and light-vehicle production growth accelerated to 8.0% in the company's third quarter.

GKN, due to report its full-year results on February 26th, was named in December as "a name to own for 2013" by Credit Suisse.

The STOXX Europe 600 Automobiles & Parts index was also up 2.06% today; it has risen 5.63% so far this year.

Sentiment was helped by German car maker BMW, which reported record sales in January. The company said that it sold 123,276 vehicles last month, up 9.9% year-on-year, with growth boosted by its largest market, China.


Top performing sectors so far today
Automobiles & Parts 5,941.03 +3.33%
Banks 4,944.83 +2.02%
Mobile Telecommunications 4,081.58 +1.59%
Life Insurance 5,281.54 +1.43%
Personal Goods 21,672.53 +1.38%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
General Industrials 3,636.12 -0.75%
Health Care Equipment & Services 3,997.88 -0.55%
Fixed Line Telecommunications 3,112.03 -0.51%
Forestry & Paper 8,315.49 -0.45%
Technology Hardware & Equipment 1,110.13 -0.40%

BC

Related share prices
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