The global chip shortage will once again have a significant impact on European car sales in January. This is evident from the latest figures from the European trade association ACEA. There are, however, major differences between the Member States.
A total of 682,596 new cars in the European Union were registered last month. That is 6 percent less than in January last year. Given that January 2021 was the worst January that ACEA had ever measured so far, that’s not a very good measure. Back then, dealers were still bothered by the lockdowns that many European countries had imposed against the corona virus, now the chip shortage is the bogeyman.
There are, however, differences between the Member States. In Germany, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia, among others, sales were clearly on the rise compared to January 2021. In most countries, including the Netherlands, fewer cars left the showroom. In our country it was even a minus of more than 11 percent. The Dutch sector organizations Bovag and RAI Association do not foresee any extreme improvement in the first half of the year due to the chip shortage. Many dealers reported full order books, but many of the ordered cars could not yet be delivered.
Nevertheless, the outlook for the rest of the year is better. ACEA recently forecast that sales in the EU are likely to increase by 8 percent to 10.5 million cars in the coming year. If chip deliveries stabilize, car manufacturers can ramp up production again. Still, it is small beer compared to 2019: with these figures, sales would still be almost 20 percent lower than in that year, before the corona crisis broke out.
Huge increase for Hyundai and Kia
January was not a bad month for every car manufacturer. Hyundai and Kia, for example, recorded a strong sales increase of 32.6 and 24.4 percent respectively. This increases the market share of the Hyundai Group in the EU to 9.7 percent. Toyota also did well with a plus of 9.7 percent. Groupe Renault does the least bad of the European car groups with a minus of 3.5 percent. This is mainly due to Dacia, which sold 16.4 percent more cars compared to January 2021. Stellantis was hit hard with a minus of 15.1 percent, the Volkswagen Group sold 7 percent fewer cars, Mercedes-Benz and BMW come out on top. a minus of 13.8 and 9.2 percent respectively. Volvo was hit hardest of all car manufacturers in January: the decrease is 22.3 percent.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl