Intermoney | According to data published by the manufacturers’ (Anfac), dealers’ (Faconauto) and sellers’ (Ganvam) associations, car sales in Spain maintained a positive performance in April, although the pace of growth moderated to +8.2% after the strong +45% growth accumulated in the first quarter.
Nearly 75k vehicles were registered in April, bringing cumulative sales in the first four months of the year to over 312k units, an increase of +34% compared to the same period last year. Despite this strong rise and the best figure in the last four years, sales are still well below pre-pandemic levels (-28% vs. the same period of 2019).
CAR REGISTRATIONS JAN-APRIL
By channels:
- Sales to private customers: -2% in April (to 28,381 units, 38% of total vehicles sold) and +21% YTD (128.9k units, 41% of the total).
- Corporate: +9% in April (to 30,615 units, 41% of total sales) and +26% YTD (129.4k units, 41% of the total).
- Rental companies: for the seventh consecutive month, a strong recovery with +31% in April (to 15,753 units, 21% of the total) and +123% YTD (54.0k units, 17% of the total).
Assessment: car sales continued to perform well in April-February, although at a much slower pace than in the first quarter. In January sales benefited from the bottlenecks in vehicle transport at the end of 2022, with many units sold in December but finally sold in January; March also saw the release of a backlog of orders after improving the logistics chain and vehicle production. In any case, although uncertainties remain high, the outlook for 2023 is for an improvement over 2022, exceeding 900k units registered according to Anfac, representing a growth of +11% vs 2022.
