Zimbabwe vehicles market remains almost flat despite the global pandemic. Indeed, Full Year 2020 sales have been 2.603, down 1.3% compared to 2019. Toyota remains the market leader with 17% market share.
Economic Environment
Zimbabwe’s economy contracted by 12.8% in 2019 due to poor performance in mining, tourism, and agriculture. Foreign currency and electricity shortages affected mining and tourism.
Agriculture shrank about 15.8% due to cyclone Idai in March 2019, prolonged drought, livestock diseases, and currency shortages reducing the availability of inputs. Despite a global mineral price recovery, production in Zimbabwe dropped below 2018 levels.
Market Trend
Despite the COVID-19 striking, the Zimbabwe vehicle market remains almost unaffected, reporting flat sales compared to the previous year.
Zimbabwe’s new vehicles market grew up until 2013 when sales hit the record of 7.860 units, before to rapidly decline at 3.754 in 2016 – as the economic crisis moved demand on cheaper used vehicles – and at only 3.345 in 2017. In 2018, after four consecutive years of decline, the market started to recover. Indeed, the year ended with registrations at 3.800 (+13.6%).
However, in 2019, the market fell below the 3.000 units sold, at the lowest volume of the entire decade. Indeed, Full-year sales have been 2.637, losing 42.8% from the previous year.
Full-Year sales for 2020 have been 2.603, reporting a 1.3% decrease compared to 2019.
Brand-wise, this year the leader Toyota (-2.9%) lost 0.3% market share, followed by Tata (-2.8%), which lost 0.2% share. Isuzu (-5.6%) was in the third position and lost 0.4% market share.
The most sold model in the country remains the Tata Truck with 268 sales (-2.9%), holding 10.3% market share.
