Authorities blamed the effect of the Lunar New Year holiday in February for the decline in China's auto sales during the said month, although sales rise in the first two months of the year.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said auto sales in the country, the world's biggest auto market, dropped 0.86 percent in February, year on year.

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The association only 1.58 million vehicles were sold last month, from the 7.7% sales rise recorded in January.

Sales of passenger cars dropped 1.5% to 1.38 million in February, although analysts said car sales are traditionally distorted due to the Lunar New Year holiday.

Based on trends in previous years, Chinese customers purchase vehicles ahead of the New Year, which often resulted to a spike in January's sales.

China produced a total of 1.61 million vehicles in February, lower by 1.3% from the same period last year. Only 1.58 million units were sold.

Sales of Japanese and French brands also declined last month, the CAAM said.

For the January-February period, however, vehicle sales in China rose 4.4 percent to 4.1 million units, the association stressed.

The association also noticed the rising popularity of new-energy vehicles during the first two months of this year.

Sales of pure electrics nearly tripled year on year to almost 25,000. During the same period last year, about 10,891 pure electric vehicles were sold in the country.

Last year, a total of 24.6 million vehicles were sold in China, up 4.7 percent from 2014. For this year, the CAAM expects auto sales to expand 6 percent to 26 million units, with new-energy vehicles accounting for 700,000 units.

China became the world's largest car market when sales grew 45 percent in 2009. Sales growth, however, slowed as China imposed measures to curb air pollution in major Chinese cities.

TagsChina cars, China Car Sales, China manufacturing, China Car Factory, China Car Market