BEIJING - China's auto sales dropped 9.4 percent year-on-year to 2.33 million units in October, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) showed Wednesday.

The decline, however, narrowed 10.2 percentage points from September, and the monthly sales rose 12.8 percent from September, according to the CAAM.

Bucking the trend, sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) climbed remarkably in October.

NEV sales rocketed 134.9 percent year-on-year in October to about 383,000 units, or up 7.2 percent from September.

The market penetration rate of NEVs in China reached 12.1 percent in the first 10 months.

China aims to raise the proportion of new NEVs in its sales of new vehicles to 20 percent by 2025, according to a development plan for China's NEV industry released in 2020.