Czech Republic auto market in 2020 falls by 18.8% as the pandemic and lockdowns affect sales. Full-Year sales have been 202.971, while the local brand Skoda reaches the highest share (36.8%) since 2016, further distancing competition.
Market Trend
The Czech car market fell significantly in 2020 as the global pandemic has impacted sales tremendously. Nevertheless, the leader and local brand Skoda reached its highest share (36.8%) since 2017.
The market registered a constant growth in 2010-2017 when the market grew up from 167.000 to the current all-time record of 271.000 units, pushed by a booming economy and growing internal consumer demand. Then, the trend started to moderately decline, with 261.437 sales in 2018 and 249.915 in 2019.
After starting the year almost flat (-0.8%), the market quickly collapsed in March as the virus started to spread worldwide. The sharpest drop in sales this year was in April when sales declined by 53.4%.
Similar to most of the European countries, which have imposed lockdowns to various degrees in order to slow down the spread of the Coronavirus, the Czech Government imposed the quarantine in the whole country on March 16, closing its borders and forbidding the entry of foreigners. While being originally planned to last until March 24, the State of Emergency was then extended until April 30.
In March sales were still very negative (-44.4%) but then recovered quickly because of accumulated demand and EU incentives before falling again significantly in August (-33.6%). In the last 4 months of the year, the country experienced a mixed trend as cases started to rise.
Indeed, Full-Year sales for 2020 have been 202.971, reporting a decline of 18.8% compared to 2019.
Brand-wise, the local leader Skoda (-12.9%) gained 2.4% market share, followed by Volkswagen (-20.5%), which lost only 0.1% share, and by Hyundai which gained 0.2% share, falling 17%. Toyota reached 4th place by jumping 3 spots and reported the best performance in the leaderboard (+1.3%), followed by Dacia which on the other hand registered the worst performance, falling 34.1% and losing 1 spot.
Peugeot -down 1 spot- lost 25.4%, followed by Kia (-13.9%) and Renault which fell 2 spots and lost 25.8% sales. Closing the leaderboard we have Mercedes -up 1 spot- losing only 4.1% this year and Ford ending in the last place by losing 2 spots, falling 30.1% this year.
The most sold vehicle remains the Skoda Octavia (-11.9%) for the 12th year in a row with 19.091 units sold, followed by the Skoda Fabia, which lost 21.1% registering 15.986 new sales this year. The Skoda Scala (+26.7%) closes the podium by jumping 4 spots and reports 8.736 new units sold.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 models.
