New car sales in Spain surpass million-mark, sector facing tough 2025
02/01/2025 12:22
By Javi West Larrañaga
Jan 2 (Reuters) - New car sales in Spain surpassed the
one million mark in 2024 for the first time since the COVID-19
pandemic, data showed on Thursday, but analysts and industry
sources said this should not be seen as a sign of recovery in a
sector facing a tough 2025.
Changing trends in car usage, high prices, uncertainty
around electric vehicles (EVs) and fierce competition from
Chinese brands are all expected to create challenges for the
auto industry in Spain, said Felipe Munoz, an analyst at market
research firm JATO Dynamics.
New car sales in 2019 reached well over 1.3 million, but
then slumped to around 900,000 annually for the next four years.
Though 2024's 1.02 million sales represent a 7.1% increase
year-on-year, they are still far below the original trend.
Last year's rise was helped by a massive 28.8% spike in
year-on-year sales in December, the data showed.
Munoz said the uptick seemed transitory, as new car sales
had failed to properly take off after the pandemic clobbered
demand, adding: "I don't think (the Spanish car market) will
ever hit those numbers again."
According to Munoz, after the semiconductor scarcity crisis,
European car manufacturers focused on increasing their prices at
the cost of selling fewer units - and still made record profits.
"That strategy worked perfectly for them until this year,
when Chinese brands started to penetrate the market more
successfully in Europe, and they realised their prices were too
high in comparison," he added.
Spanish car part manufacturer Gestamp was less affected by a
drop in car sales in Spain and Europe due to its geographic
diversification, CFO Ignacio Mosquera said, but more had to be
done to help an ailing sector that lacked a clear policy in "one
of the most important industry overhauls in history".
"If there's no public-private partnership, there's
uncertainty in demand and people don't know which vehicle to
buy. Faced with that decision, what do they do? They extend the
life of their vehicle," Mosquera said - thus reducing sales.
Echoing that sentiment, the head of Spanish car part
manufacturers' association Sernauto, Jose Portilla, said more
state support was needed to encourage the sale of EVs.
"If we're able to boost the recharging infrastructure, EVs
become more affordable, and the subsidies are given at the time
of purchase instead of one-and-a-half or two years later. This
will encourage the market much more and we'll be able to
redirect this situation," Portilla added.
(Reporting by Javi West Larrañaga; Editing by David Latona and
Gareth Jones)
((gdansk.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com; +48 58 769 66 00;))