Swedish auto market in 2020 falls by 18.1% as the pandemic affects sales significantly, in fact, full-Year sales have been 291.669. For the first time in history, Volvo holds the entire podium of most sold vehicles.
Market Trend
The Swedish car market decreased sales in 2020, but much less compared to other countries in the area. In fact, unlike most European countries – during the Coronavirus outbreak – in 2020 the Swedish Government has not imposed lockdown measures, leaving the public to follow a series of recommendations. Nevertheless, the cases in the country started growing exponentially again in October, reaching record highs every week in November and December.
The year started with a negative trend as the change in the bonus/malus tax system calculation – which from the 1st January 2020 is based on WLTP – has logically negatively impacted the market bringing sales down in double-digit during the first month, in which sales fell by 18%.
But the worse was yet to come, in fact, sales fell a drastic 50.2% in May, but recovered quickly. In September the market even grew by 7.3%, but this positive trend was quickly reversed as soon as the second wave hit the country and infections started sky-rocketing.
Indeed, Full-Year sales for 2020 have been 291.669, reporting a decline of 18.1% compared to 2019.
The main success story of the year is the record success of rechargeable cars (PHEV and BEV) up 132% year-on-year to 93.938 and 32.2% share vs. just 11.3% in 2019. PHEVs are driving Sweden’s electrification at +166% this year while BEVs are up 79%. Rechargeable cars are now more popular than diesel vehicles, in fact, PHEV sales alone are now ahead of diesel sales.
Brand-wise, this year the leader Volvo (-19.3%) lost 0.2% market share, followed by the growing Volkswagen (-12.5%), which gained an impressive 1% share. Kia on the other hand gained even more, 1.5% share, losing only 1%. Toyota remained in 4th place and reported the best performance in the leaderboard (-0.7%), followed by Mercedes -up 2 spots- which lost 7.7%.
Audi lost 9.4%, followed by BMW (-16.2%) -down 2 spots- and Skoda which remained in 8th position despite reporting the worst performance in the leaderboard by losing 20.3% sales. Closing the leaderboard we have Peugeot -up 1 spot- losing 9.7% this year and Seat entering the leaderboard by jumping 1 spot, losing 10.9%.
This year has been very interesting as the entire podium of most sold vehicles was held by Volvo for the first time in history. In fact, the Volvo S/V60 (-19.9%) has been the most sold vehicle this year with 18.567 units sold, followed by the Volvo XC60 -up 2 spots- which lost 7.2% registering 12.291 new sales this year. The Volvo XC40 (+35.6%) closes the podium by jumping 5 spots and reports 10.293 new units sold.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.
