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APIA: the auto market grew by 10.7% in Q1
The auto market of Romania registered in June a total growth of 7.6% as compared to the similar month of 2018, at the end of the Q1 being registered a general growth of 10.7% according to a press conference of the Association of the Producers and Importers of Vehicles (APIA).
‘In this context, there is to remember the fact that, by comparison to the majority of the EU member states, Romania registers a continous growth of the market over the last 12 months (one month being decreasing – March 2019 – possibly due to the starting of the programme Rabla (written off)of this year) say the representatives of APIA.
At a European level, there were after six months of 2019 lower volumes of the sales of new cars in the EU - -3.1% as compared to 2018. This drop is determined, especially by the EU15 countries which have the biggest share on the EU market, the diminution being as a whole of 3.6%. In June 2019 there was an important drop, 7.8% after a slight coming back in May.
The main countries in the EU which together cover almost 75% of the market, registered after six months the following evolution – France – minus 1.8%, Germany – plus 0.5%, Italy – minus 3.5%, Spain – minus 5.7% and UK –minud 3.4% are alos mentioned in the press release.
According to the quoted source, Romania continues to support sales by judicial persons, which covered 57% of the total of acquisitions of cars made over the first six months of 2019. The number of cars acquired by natural persons in Q1 (36,122 units) was by 25.6% superior to that of the similar period of the previous year (28,751 units) even if in 2019 the Rabla programme started one month later than the previous year. But, the share of natural persons grew as a whole during the mentioned period, from 38% in 2018 to 43% in 2019.
As regards the second hand cars, in the first six months of 2019 there were registered 217,701 units, with 7.3% fewer than in 2018 but as a structure of age ( the oldest over 12 years having, as a whole, a drop of 12.2%).
In June, the sales of new cars had a growth in volume (+7.6%) as compared to the similar month of the previous year. As a result, in the first six months of 2019, there was a growth of the market by 10.7% on a total volume of 98,538 units. Out of these, 84,300 were cars (plus 11.9%) and 14,238 commercial vehicles (plus 4.4%).
The top for makes ( cars + commercial vehicles) was led by Dacia with 27,642 units, followed by Renault with 9,084 units and Volkswagen with 8,388 units. Dacia led the top for cars, and Ford for light commercial vehicles.
For cars, the top on makes is Dacia, first with 26,200 units ( 31.1% market share, on a growing volume by 7.6% against 2018), followed by Renault with 8,182 units (9.7% market share, growing volume with 37%), Skoda with 6,889 units ( 8.2% market share, higher volumes with 1.9%) and Ford with 5,168 units (6.1% market share, higher volumes by 11.9%).
For models, with the 10,973 units sold, Dacia Logan was the best sold model in the first six months of 2019, followed by Dacia Duster with 5,981 units, Dacia Sandero with 5,680 units, Renault Clio with 3,994 units and Skoda Octavia with 2,468 units.
Depending on the class sector, after the first six months of 2019 there was a mixed evolution: growth on Sport (+43.9%), SUV (+ 21.8%) C class (+5.2%), B class (+1.9%), drops in F class (-41.2%), A class (-13.1%) MPV (-5.1%) and E class (-1.5%).
Depending on the type of fuel, cars on gasoline had a percentage of 71.6% of the total, significantly higher as compared to the share they had in the first six months of 2018 (59%). Out of the first 10 makes/models sold, 6 makes and 9 models had a share in sales with gasoline engines over this average.
On the other hand, in June, the share of diesel cars grew by 1.5 percentage points over the quota of May (22.8% against 21.3%). In this context, for the category of light commercial vehicles the share of diesel engines is 96% of the total.
In the case of ‘green’ care (electrical and hybrid) the share continued to grow, getting to a market share relatively important, 3.5% respectively ( last year they had a share of 2.4%) while in June there was a market share of 4% reaching in Q1 a share of 3.6% as compared to that of other developed states in Europe.
As for categories, there was growth of 145.4% (2.5 times) for the full electrical and a drop of 23.5% in the plug-in ones. On the other hand, hybrid cars had a growth of 59.3%.
The 4x4 vehicles represented 18.6% of the total of sales made in the first six months of 2019, for a total volume of 15,682 units, slightly dropping by 0.2% against 2018 ( much under the market average which was +11.9%).
Depending on the country of origin of the cars, the situation is the following: Romania – a share of 31.0%, Germany 17.5%, the Czech Republic 10.6%, Turkey 10.2% and Spain 8.4%. Thus, the sales of cars from domestic production grew in the first six months of 2019 with 10.9% as compared to the similar period of 2018, and the imported ones registered a growth of 12.3%.