Finnish Cars Market still struggling in 2024. New car passenger sales in September have been 4,278 (-37.3%) marking the 10th negative month in a row. YTD sales in September reached 51,230 (-18.7%), one of the worst performance in Europe.
Market Trend and Outlook
Finland’s economy is expected to remain stagnant in 2024, with almost zero GDP growth, as domestic and external demand recover slowly. Inflation is projected to decrease to 1.4%, but a VAT hike in September 2024 will likely push it to 2.1% in 2025. The government deficit is set to rise to 3.4% in 2024 before falling below 3% in 2025 due to fiscal consolidation efforts. Public debt is forecast to increase, exceeding 80% of GDP by 2024, but labor market tightness and improving economic activity may stabilize unemployment and boost growth by 2025.
New car passenger sales in September 2024 have been 4,278 (-37.3%) marking the 10th consecutive negative month. YTD sales reached 51,230 (-18.7%), one of the worst performance in Europe.
Looking at cumulative data up to September 2024 brand-wise, the leader was still Toyota with 9,891 sales (-11.7%), followed by Volvo -up 2 spot- at 5,997 (+8.4%), Skoda -down 1 spot- at 4,920 (-22%) and Volkswagen -down 1 spot- with 4,279 units sold (-28.6%).
Kia ranked 5th with 4,163 sales (-18.1%), followed by BMW -up 2 spots- with 2,703 registrations (-26.8%), Mercedes at 2,642 new sales (-32.3%) and Tesla -down 2 spots- with 2,632 sales (-46.1%).
Nissan ranked into 9th position with 2,483 sales (+16.4%), followed by Hyundai -up 2 spots- which closed the top 10 with 2,408 new car registrations (+41.1%).
Looking at best selling models the Toyota Corolla Sedan was still the leader despite falling 26.2% in year-on-year sales, followed by the Toyota Yaris Cross up 6 spots (+47.2%).
Medium-Term Market Trend
The Finnish car market has remained quite stable in the passed decade with a main exception in the last 3 years. In fact after a 14.6% growth in 2011 the market remained between a low of 99,832 in 2013 and a peak of 116,743 in 2018 until the arrival of the pandemic.
In March 2020 the Covid-virus arrived in Europe causing many economies to shut down temporarily. The Finnish market suffered a 15.3% loss reaching 93,103 sales by the end of 2020, the lowest levels of the decade.
2021 presented a year of slight recovery, with sales remaining nearly unvaried compared to the previous year. While in 2022 the market lost 16.2% in volume, with cumulative sales reaching 80,061.
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, with Scandinavian countries being ahead of this wave.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturer Groups, and top 10 Models.
