Argentina Vehicles Market is experiencing a downturn in 2024. Sales in November reached 33,031 (-1.8%), ending a a 3-month positive string. YTD figures at 364,644 confirmed the trend, down 9.1% from the prior year.
Market Trend and Outlook
Among the President Javier Milei package of reforms, in December 2023 the administration lifted the import restrictions impacting the auto market. The policy was put in place by the previous government as a way to build the country’s foreign currency reserves. However, the move had unintended consequences. The restrictions discouraged many OEMs from importing vehicles into Argentina, as it is costly for the automakers to import their vehicles and components. This gave the manufacturers who already had a strong production presence in the country an advantage.
The new administration lifted the import restrictions with the idea of supporting the automotive market in mind, but the uncertainty in the economy could overshadow the potential gains from the change. Furthermore, some OEMs and suppliers are still struggling to import parts for vehicles due to debts previously incurred with import brokers and for US dollar shortage in production, restricting the components availability and consequently the local production. For example, General Motors suffered from a slowdown due to a supplier struggling with payments associated with import restriction debt accumulation.
Looking at sales figures, the start of 2024 has been deeply negative and the moderate recovery from 2021 has been brutally broken in these months. Despite posting a recovery in the second half of the year, the trend seems to have reverted in November, as monthly new car sales dropped 1.8 to 33,031 units. YTD figures stood at 364,644 (-9.1%).
Looking at cumulative data up to November 2024 brand-wise, the leader was still Toyota with 79,655 sales (-10.4%), followed by Volkswagen -up 1 spot- at 60,489 (+14.6%), in front of Fiat -down 1 spot- with 45,151 (-15.9%).
Peugeot -up 1 spot- ranked 4th with 35,086 sales (-12.8%) followed by Ford -up 1 spot- at 33,198 (-6.7%), Renault -down 2 spots- with 32,051 (-31.6%) and Chevrolet with 21,830 (-26%).
Citroen gained 1 position and ranked 8th with 13,644 sales (+17.3%), in front of Jeep -up 1 spot- with 12,349 sales (+43.7%) and Nissan -down 2 spots- in 10th place with 11,785 sales (-36.1%).
Looking at best-selling models, with full details reported in the dedicated post, the Peugeot 208 was still the best seller despite a 19.9% decrease in year-on-year sales. The Toyota Hilux ranked 2nd, declining by 3.7% in yearly volume and in third place the Fiat Cronos (-41.4%).
Medium-Term Market Trend
The Argentinian light vehicle market had many ups and downs in the last decade, rising to 917,777 sales in 2013 and collapsing 25.4% in the following year to 684,459 new registrations. Sales fell to 633,740 in 2015 and began to recover up to 863,556 in 2017. 2018 and 2019 both reported losses with the later falling 42.9% reaching the lowest of the past decade at 438,590.
The arrival of the pandemic in 2020 worsened the situation causing the market to fall another 30.7% to 303,793.
Post-covid the Argentinian light vehicle market is showing signs of recovery with 2021 ending at 355,793 sales (+17.1%) and 2022 totaling 392,533 sales, a 6.5% growth from the prior year.
In 2023 reported figures at 419,256, a 6.8% increase from 2022. Despite few factors that put negative pressure on the market throughout 2023: the disruption in the global supply chain caused by a lack of raw materials, in particular for the production of microchips and the Governments push towards Evs. This last point isn’t as important now as it will be in the future, considering that currently only 0.45% of market share in South America belongs to BEVs.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group, and top 10 Models.
