China's automobile industry logged stable growth in 2022, reporting year-on-year expansion in revenue and profits, data released Friday by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) showed.

The combined revenue of companies in the sector neared 9.29 trillion yuan ($1.37 trillion) in the period, up 6.8 percent year on year, according to CAAM. 

The sector raked in total profits of 531.96 billion yuan in 2022, up 0.6 percent from the previous year. The growth was 14 percentage points higher than in the manufacturing industry overall during the same period. 

Last year, the industrial added value of auto manufacturers rose 6.3 percent from the previous year, 2.7 percentage points higher than the level of major industries, data showed.

Meanwhile, the association's data suggests that China's auto exports realized steady growth in the first month of 2023. A total of 301,000 vehicles were exported in January, up 30.1 percent from a year ago. In the same month, exports of new energy vehicles jumped 48.2 percent year on year to 83,000 units.

However, vehicle production and sales volume declined in January. The country logged 1.59 million units in production and 1.65 million units in sales last month, falling 33.1 percent and 35.5 percent, respectively, from December 2022.

For the first quarter of 2023, difficulties still exist in sustaining the growth of China's automobile industry and there is a need for policy support to boost auto consumption, said CAAM. 

Recently, several government departments announced that they will continue to stabilize and expand auto consumption, with relevant policies being rolled out in many regions. These measures will inject confidence into the auto market, said CAAM.

(With input from Xinhua)