The Lebanese car importers extended their contracting performance by March 2015, mirroring the economic slowdown that was overshadowing Lebanon in the past few years and heavily impacting their car sales. In fact, the first quarter of 2015 divulged a 3.8% y-o-y slump in the total number of car sales (newly registered commercial and passenger cars) to settle at 8,045. In details, the number of newly registered passenger cars slipped by 3.3% y-o-y in the first 3 months of the year to reach 7,542 (almost 93.7% of total newly imported cars). In addition, the number of newly registered commercial cars fell at a faster pace of 10.8% to 504 cars.
Japanese cars remained the most popular cars amongst Lebanese in Q1 2015 grasping 38.7% of newly registered cars. Korean cars came second (with a share of 34.1%), while European cars took the third place constituting a share of 21.9% of newly registered cars. Car sales breakdown according to brand ranked Kia at the top with 1,531 vehicles sold (or 20.30% of total newly registered cars), followed by Toyota with 1,300 units (or 17.24% of total newly registered cars), Hyundai (1,040 units or 13.79% of total newly registered cars) and Nissan (743 units or 9.85% of total newly registered cars).
In terms of sales per importer, NATCO SAL maintained its lion share at 19.0% share, while BUMC and Century Motor Co captured 17.1% and 13.2% of the market.