European lockdowns drag down January global sales

T

he first month of light vehicle sales for 2021 has now been collated for global markets. They show a marginal rise of 0.6% when compared with last year. The SAAR came in at 81.46m, the lowest since June 2020, and slightly below the level of January 2020 due to a different balance to regional sales.

The geographic disparity in sales performance in most ably demonstrated by the results in Europe. For the region as a whole sales fell 20.4%, but this partially hid a steeper fall in lockdown-affected West European markets of 23.5%. Here, key markets such as the UK, Spain and Germany all fell more than 30%.

North America’s sales also fell. The US was the least affected there with sales down by just 3.7%, but sales in Canada and Mexico dropped by a combined 23.3%. South American markets lost a bit of recovery momentum in January, with both the Brazilian and Colombian markets impacted by a resurgence in COVID-19 infections. Falls in the two markets led the region’s sales down 7.2% year-on-year despite notably strong growth from Argentina and Chile.

All four Asia Pacific major markets performed strongly – China up 21%, Japan up 7.1%, India up 10.1% and South Korea up 19% - and contributed to the overall regional growth of 15%.

These are the markets that we expect to power the industry through a difficult first quarter. Uncertainties about demand have been compounded by the global semiconductor shortage which OEMs expect to limit sales opportunities in the first quarter.

We expect 2021 to be just as tumultuous as 2020. This will be particularly true in the first two quarters. Year-on-year comparisons against extremely low bases will come into play in the first half. However, this could spur consumer confidence, and coupled with vaccine rollouts around the world, a stronger market for 2021 than many anticipate may be in the offing.

– By Calum MacRae