BEIJING, Jan. 12 -- China's auto sales continued to expand in 2014, cementing its position as the world's biggest auto market, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said Monday.

Approximately 23.49 million cars were sold in China last year, a year on year increase of 6.9 percent, according to a CAAM report.

However, the growth is a sharp drop from the 13.9 percent increase recorded a year earlier.

CAAM deputy secretary Shi Jianhua attributed the loss of momentum to the economic downturn, sluggish growth in the commercial cars market, as well as the higher comparison base a year earlier.

Vehicle sales in 2015 would top 25.13 million, CAAM forecast, a year on year rise of 7 percent.

China sold 19.7 million passenger cars in 2014, up 9.89 percent year on year, while sales of commercial cars came in at 3.79 million, down 6.53 percent from the same period in the previous year. Overall, auto sales saw an increase of 7.3 percent year on year.

Notably, the share of domestic brands dropped sharply, accounting for a mere 38.44 percent of annual sales, down 2.1 percentage points from the ratio seen a year earlier.