BEIJING, Jan 9 (Reuters) - China's car sales fell at the fastest clip in nearly two years in December, as most automakers scrambled to hit their year-end sales targets amid cutthroat competition in the world's largest market.

Sales dropped 14.5% from a year earlier to 2.28 million units last month, worsening from an 8.5% fall in November and the biggest fall since February 2024, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed on Friday.

For the full year, car sales were up 3.9%, slowing from a growth of 5.3% in 2024 and the slowest in three years.

(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

((qiaoyi.li@thomsonreuters.com;))