Israel 2023. Vehicle Market Merely Up 0.5% Due To Hamas Attack In October

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The 2024 Mazda MX-30
The 2024 Mazda MX-30

Israeli vehicles market in 2023 reported a total of 269,461 units sold, a 0.5% increase from 2022. Despite reporting a slight growth in sales, the market took a beating in the last months of the year.

Market Trend and Outlook

After expanding 3.1% in quarter-on-quarter annualised terms in Q2, the Israeli economy saw robust growth in Q3. However, the conflict with Hamas is weighing on momentum in Q4. The government has called up over 300,000 reservists, sparking labor shortages and depressing private spending. In addition, the closure of schools and universities is hitting the education sector, while security concerns are set to weigh heavily on tourism and investment. Moreover, movement restrictions will be reducing the supply of Palestinian laborers, weighing on construction output.

This conflict has also heavily effected the Israeli Vehicle Market, which totalled 269,461 new sales in 2023 and grew a mere 0.5% from 2022. In fact December fell for the 3rd consecutive month, reporting only 4,711 sales (-58.4%).

Looking at cumulative data from 2023 brand-wise, the leader was still Hyundai at 41,790 sales (-1.8%), in front of Kia at 32,873 sales (-14.0%) and Toyota at 31,865 registrations (-13.6%).

BYD jumped 14 spots into 4th with 15,145 sales (+308.2%), followed by Skoda with 14,543 new registrations (+7.3%), Mazda  at 13,780 (-26.6%) and Chery -up 25 spots- in 7th with 11,162 units sold.

Mitsubishi fell 2 spots into 8th with 10,299 sales (-11.9%), followed by Suzuki -down 2 spots- at  8,851 sales (+1.9%) and Geely -down 1 spot- with 7,192 registrations (+4.6%).

Medium-Term Market Trend

The Israeli vehicles market in the past decade has had two main trends. From 2013 to 2016 the market grew year-by-year starting at 208,614 in 2013 and ending at an all-time high of 281,736 light vehicle sales. In the following year the market reversed, falling for 4 years in a row and reaching 246,311 sales by the end of 2019.

With the arrival of the pandemic in 2020 the light vehicle market collapsed even further, reaching 211,322 new car registrations by the end of the year (-14.2%).

Luckily the market boomed in the following year, with 2021 reaching a new all-time high at 284,432 sales , a +34.6% year-on-year variation. The following year the market underperformed, with sales in 2022 reaching 268,141 (-7.3%). 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.

Tables with sales figures

In the tables below we report sales for 10 Brands and top 10 Manufacturers Groups.

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