Brazil Vehicles Market kept growing in 2019 posting the third annual growth in a row achieving near 2.66 million units sold, up over 25% from the 2016 negative peak, while still near 25% far from the 2013 record. Chevrolet, Volkswagen and Fiat on top of the list control 47% of the market, while Renault, Toyota and Hyundai are the emerging brands.
Economic Environment
Brazilian economy is gaining gradual steam, albeit from a subdued level. Data for September revealed a positive end to Q3 for the domestic economy, with economic activity and retail sales both jumping. Moreover, incoming data for Q4 points to broadly sustained momentum, with the manufacturing PMI staying in expansionary territory for the third consecutive month in October and business confidence edging up in November.
The external sector continues to remain under pressure amid evaporated demand from Argentina and subdued exports to China; exports recorded the largest drop since January 2016 in October.
Growth is seen gaining steam next year, on the back of recovering confidence and accommodative monetary policy. In addition, household spending should receive a boost from a government measure to allow workers to tap into an unemployment benefit fund.
Market Trend
Brazilian vehicles market fell from a record of 3.6 million in the 2012, when ranked as 4th globally, below the 2 million in the 2016 (1.989.000 units) with a vertical unprecedented and unexpected fall.
The main reason behind the fall was the National Automotive Plan released in the 2013 which imposed to the manufacturers new standards in terms of contents, safety, emissions further reserving advantages to models local produced towards the imported from outside the region.
In addition, since 2014 the country economy is in difficulties and the previous decade political and social stability has left space to a political battle without limits, which penalized the expectations and the economic endeavor.
However, the domestic car market bottomed out in the first quarter 2017 when the volume was over 45% below the 2013 level and a new positive path was approached.
After ending the 2017 with a recovery of 9.2%, in the 2018 the market further improved ending the year at 2.47 million units sold, up 13.8%.
In 2019 the recovery continued and the full year ended at 2.65 million units, up 7.6% from the previous year. Indeed, this has been the third annual gain in a row.
In the recent years the market changed radically. Until the 2013 the top three brands, Volkswagen, Fiat and Chevrolet used to hold over 60% of market share, while actually these three brands count 47%, despite remaining the best selling brands in the market. They have lost near 15 points of share in advantage of fast growing brands, like Renault, Toyota, Hyundai, Jeep and Nissan, while other traditionally strong players, like Ford, Peugeot and Mitsubishi declined.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all brands, top 10 Manufacturers and top 10 Models.
