“The number of new cars registered during the month of October 2019 has dramatically dropped by 62 % in comparison with the month of October 2018”, according to the latest statement by the Association of Lebanese Car Importers (AIA).
Civic protests erupted across Lebanon since October 17th 2019, paralyzing economic activity and business operations, including the car market. As such, the total number of new cars registered amounted to 1,049 cars in October 2019, down from 2,744 cars in October last year. In details, the number of passenger cars fell by 61.7% year-on-year (YOY) to 960 cars, while that of commercial cars contracted by 62.1% YOY to 89 cars by end-October.
According to the Economic Research Dept. at BLOMInvest Bank, October’s sales of Toyota, Kia, Nissan and Hyundai cars slumped by a month-on-month (m-o-m) 58.14%, 69.88%, 71.78% and 77.64%, respectively. As a result, the year-to-date (YTD) sales of these top selling brands also deflated. For instance Toyota and Kia sales fell by 37.97% and 30.22% YTD to 2,287 and 3,111 cars, respectively. As for the Nissan and Hyundai sales, they contracted by an annual 33.67% and 42.81% to 2,265 and 2,139 cars, respectively, by October 2019.
In fact, the slump in the cars market had persisted in the first 10 months of 2019, with October particularly weighing down on performance. In fact, the cumulative number of new registered “commercial” and “passenger” cars fell by an annual 28% to stand at 22,008 cars by October 2019. The breakdown of the AIA’s statistics revealed that the number of newly registered “passenger” cars dropped by 27.2% to 20,825 cars. In turn, the number of new registered “commercial” vehicles contracted by a yearly 39.5% to 1,183 cars by October 2019.
BLOMInvest Bank projects car market statistics to deteriorate further in November 2019, given the month will reflect the full materialization of the protests that started since October 2019.
Evolution of the Number of Total New Cars Registered by October 2019
Source: AIA