Danish Car Market stayed flat in 2024, with 173,057 units sold (+0.2%). Volkswagen claimed the top spot as best selling brand, posting impressive growth also in EV sales, while Telsa lost grounds.
Market Trend and Outlook
Denmark’s economy is forecasted to grow by 2.4% in 2024 and 2.5% in 2025, driven by net exports initially and domestic demand in later years. Inflation is expected to remain low at 1.3% in 2024, rising to 1.9% in 2025, supported by falling energy prices and easing wage pressures. Unemployment is projected to stabilize at 5.8%, while employment grows modestly, easing labor market tightness. Private consumption is set to recover gradually, benefiting from rising real incomes, though cautious households will keep savings high. Business investments are subdued for now but expected to pick up as interest rates decline.
Exports remain robust, fueled by pharmaceuticals, sea freight, and the resumption of North Sea gas production, with the current account surplus staying near 10% of GDP. Public finances are strong, with a government surplus declining from 2.3% of GDP in 2024 to 1.5% in 2025 due to tax reforms and higher military spending. Gross debt is forecasted to fall below 30% of GDP by 2025. Risks include dependency on the pharmaceutical sector and volatile freight rates.
EV adoption in Denmark continues to rise sharply in 2024, with sales climbing 34.1% year-over-year. EVs now represent over 1 in 4 cars sold, capturing a 39.6% market share and confirming the country’s commitment to the green transition.
Tesla remained the top seller, but Volkswagen’s 100.3% growth brought it closer to the lead. Volvo, Xpeng, and BYD also saw significant gains, entering the Top 10.
The Danish car market remained stagnant in 2024. Total sales reached 173,057 units (+0.2%), putting a pause on the recovery momentum following the 2022 dip.
Looking at cumulative data up to December 2024 brand-wise, the leader became Volkswagen -up 1 spot- with 20,044 sales (+19.1%), followed by Tesla -down 1 spot- with 16,034 registrations (-28.2%) and Toyota -up 1 spot- with 13,279 units sold (+10.5%).
In 4th position ranked Mercedes -up 1 spot- at 13,057 sales (+20.8%) in front of Audi -down 2 spots- with 12,411 registrations (-5.5%), BMW -up 2 spots- with 10,917 units sold (+27.5%), Skoda -down 1 spot- with 10,835 sales (+15.5%) and Peugeot -down 1 spot- at 8,296 (-6.4%).
Renault climbed 7 spots and ranked 9th with 7,683 sales (+75.1%) while Volvo -up 2 spots- closed the top 10 with 6,017 new registrations (+20.3%).
Looking at specific models, reported in the dedicated article, the Tesla Model Y sold the most cars despite falling 41.7% compared to the previous year, followed by the Volkswagen ID.4 which boomed 122.8% in year-on-year volume.
Medium-Term Market Trend
In the past decade the Danish auto market has had 2 main trends. In the first part of the decade the market grew almost doubling in volume, starting in 2010 at 141,505 and reaching an all-time high of 231,551 sales in 2016. The trend inverted in 2017, starting a long downtrend, that would be interrupted briefly in 2019 with a 3.6% growth to 225,219 sales.
In 2020 arrived the pandemic that caused many European markets to collapse, and the Danish one was no exception, falling 12.1% to 198,034 new car sales.
The fall continued through 2021, reporting a 6.4% loss, and 2022, which lost another 20% from the prior year. A combination of factors are behind the current industry struggle: the disruption in the global supply chain caused by a lack of raw materials, in particular for the production of microchips and Governments push towards Evs, an expensive alternative for low income consumers. Despite, it totalled 172,719 sales in 2023, growing 16.5% in comparison to the prior year.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group, and Top 10 models.
