Finland 2023. Tesla Shines (+263%) In A Rebounding Auto Market (+7.3%)

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The 2023 Toyota Corolla Hatchback
The 2023 Toyota Corolla Hatchback

Finnish Cars Market slightly recover in 2023. Although the country is in recession, the auto market reported 86,071 sales (+7.3%) reverting the previous years decline. Tesla jumped in 6th place (+263.4%). 

Market Trend and Outlook

The Finnish economy is in recession. GDP will contract by 0.5% in 2023 and by 0.2% in 2024. The weakness in the economy is widespread. However, households’ purchasing power is improving as inflation slows rapidly. In addition, the financial markets are expecting interest rates to fall in the forecast years. Growth in Finland’s export markets will gradually recover, which will support the recovery of GDP growth from the latter part of 2024

Fortunately at the moment the Finnish Car Market is still performing well with sales in reaching 86,071 (+7.3%) in 2023. Despite December losing volume after growing for the 9th month in a row, with 5,748 new registrations (-6.4%). 

Looking at cumulative data up to December 2023 brand-wise, the leader is still Toyota with 14,267 sales (-1.4%), followed by Skoda -up 2 spots- at 8,819 (+30.6%), Volkswagen -down 1 spot- at 7,637 (+7.2%) and Volvo -up 1 spot- with 7,288 units sold (+8.7%).

Kia falls 2 spots into 5th with 6,603 sales (-4.3%), followed by Tesla -up 8 spots- with 6,138 registrations (+263.4%), Mercedes -down 1 spot- at 5,426 new sales (+6.2%) and BMW -down 1 spot- with 4,976 sales (+1.3%).

Audi rises 1 spots into 9th position with 3,546 sales (+29.8%), followed by Nissan -down 1 spot- closes the top 10 with 2,641 new car registrations (-10.1%).

Looking at specific models the Toyota Corolla Sedan is the best seller rising 9.3% in year-on-year sales, followed by the Tesla Model Y up 17 spots and 329.0%.

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.

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