The car market 0 km still shows no recovery. After the worst January in the last 20 years and a February that also went down, Maze also closed with a sharp drop, despite the strong promotions and financing alternatives that the brands recently launched.
The number of patented vehicles during the third month of 2024 amounted to 25,294 units, which represents a drop of 37% compared to March of last year, when 39,875 units had been registered.
If the comparison is with February of this year, an increase of 1% is observed since last month 25,052 units had been registered, according to the Association of Automotive Dealers of the Argentine Republic (ACARA).
The particularity that this month had is that the patent count closed several days earlier because the records will remain closed until the beginning of April, due to the extra long weekend. In any case, the registered business days add up to the same amount as February (19).
In this way, in the accumulated three months of the year, 84,261 units were patented, which represents 30% less than in the same period of 2023in which 120,744 vehicles had been registered.
These results only increase the crisis that the sector is experiencing, which is already beginning to show some suspensions, voluntary retirements and layoffs in some plants located in the country.
New market but with positive aspects
For the president of ACARA, Sebastián Beato “these figures indicate that clearly we have a new marketof offer, in which dealers must go in search of customers who have had a deterioration in their purchasing power”.
However, “there are some aspects that are positive and that give us the idea that the trend may begin to change in the short term. They are exchange rate stability, the appearance of convenient financing lines by the terminals and some banks, something we have been working on and asking for for months, and the slowdown in inflation,” he explained.
For the head of the entity “these are very relevant issues for an activity like ours and if they are consolidated we are going to months of reactivation and also of growth in patents and activity in our premises.”
The imported ones are recovered
In counting by brand, Toyota was the big winner of the month that closes, with a total of 6,068 units. They followed it, a couple of steps further back, Volkswagen (3,476) and Fiat (3,193). The top ten brands are completed by Peugeot (2,232), Renault (2,209), Ford (1,913), Chevrolet (1,045), Jeep (919), Nissan (908) and Citroën (806).
The clear trend that March showed was also the recovery of market share of imported models, since They represented 48% of the patents. The last time there was a similar proportion was in July 2021.
It must be remembered that last September, the domestic to imported ratio was 78% to 22%, as a result of import restrictions.
The 10 best-selling models of March
- Fiat Cronos: 2.105
- Peugeot 208: 1.951
- Toyota Yaris: 1.816
- Toyota Hilux: 1.441
- Ford Ranger: 1.305
- Toyota Corolla Cross: 1.077
- Toyota Corolla: 1.069
- Volkswagen Amarok: 876
- Volkswagen Polo: 781
- Volkswagen Taos: 746