Polish car market in 2020 falls by 22.9% as the pandemic and lockdowns affect sales. Full-Year sales have been 428.437. Mercedes (+0.1%) was the only brand that did not report losses this year.
Market Trend
The Polish car market has been hit in 2020 by the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic, which has impacted sales significantly.
The market is characterized by a large used vehicle market and, unique in Europe, by a strong import of “fresh” used vehicles mainly arriving from Germany. However, in recent years, the research for lower-emission vehicles and the increased income available for spending in mobility has generated a strong demand for new cars boosting the market from 384.000 in 2012 to 489.190 in 2018.
However, this positive trend is not designed to end in short and in 2019 the market has further grown, flying for the first time over the milestone of half a million units sold in a calendar year, hitting the 5th consecutive all-time record.
After starting the year with a negative trend (-14.1%), the market quickly collapsed in March as the virus struck. The sharpest drop in sales this year was in April when sales declined by 67.1% and restrictions started affecting the market significantly.
In the following months, the market recovered, although it remained down in double-digits until September, the only positive month of the year (+8%). Sales remained down in the fourth quarter, but improved, ending the year down 1.9% in December.
Indeed, Full-Year sales for 2020 have been 428.347, reporting a decline of 22.9% compared to 2019.
Brand-wise, this year the new leader Toyota (-0.8%) gained 2.9% market share, overtaking Skoda (-17.9%), which 0.6% share. Volkswagen on the other hand lost 0.8% share, falling 27.8%. Kia reached 4th place (-18%), followed by Renault –up 3 spots- which lost 17.7%.
Dacia -down 1 spot- lost 32.2%, followed by Mercedes -up 4 spots- which reported the best performance in the leaderboard by growing 0.1%, and Ford which fell 1 spot and reported the worst performance by losing 32.3% sales. Closing the leaderboard we have Hyundai losing 24.5% this year and BMW losing 11.6%.
The most sold vehicle this year has been the Skoda Octavia (-8.4%) with 18.668 units sold, followed by the Toyota Corolla, which lost 11.1% registering 17.507 new sales this year. The Toyota Yaris (+9.3%) closes the podium by jumping 2 spots and reports 15.378 new units sold.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for 10 Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.
