Full-year passenger car sales to show 5% decline in 2019
05/12/2019
At the organisation’s annual press conference in Berlin on December 4, VDA president, Bernhard Mattes, said this figure would represent a decline of 4.1 million vehicles, or 5% compared to the 2018 figure.
“This decrease is larger than that recorded during the financial and economic crisis that took place 10 years ago,” Mr Mattes said.
He explained that a fall in sales in China was the main reason. VDA expects the Chinese market to have sales of 20.9 million vehicles in 2019, which is 10% down on the figure for 2018.
The corresponding predictions are 16.9 million passenger cars in the US in 2019, down by 2% year on year, and 15.6 million in the European Union, flat with the figure for 2018.
VDA predicts a global total of 78.9 million for 2020, down by 1% on its figure for 2019. China will contribute 20.5 million to this total, a further fall of 2%, while the figures for the US and the current 28 markets of the European Union will be 16.5 million and 15.3 million vehicles, declines of 3% and 2% respectively.
“We see, therefore, that the path will be steep, rocky and arduous,” Mr Matthes said. “We are preparing for this. The competition will be harsher, the headwind rougher.”
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