The global automotive market is down 4% at the end of 2019

The global automotive market is down 4% at the end of 2019

The rating agency Fitch forecasts a decline of about 4% in global vehicle sales for this year 2019. 77.5 million units are expected to be registered against 80.6 million in 2018.

Global sales of passenger cars are expected to decline by about 4% over the full year 2019 to 77.5 million units, according to Fitch rating agency does not plan to rebound in 2020. ” It there seems little reason to anticipate a rebound in global auto sales in 2020, even though sales in China could recover marginally by around 1%, “said Fitch’s chief economist, Brian Coulton, in a statement.

” The automotive market is likely to continue to weigh heavily on the global industry and the highly exposed economies in this sector, such as Germany, ” he added. For 2019, Fitch expects a market down more than 3 million cars, a much larger decline than forecasts from spring 2019. The fall would be stronger in absolute terms than in 2008, the year of the financial crisis, even if in percentage the decline amounted then to -5%.

The weight of China

” The main cause of lower-than-expected sales is China, with sales down 11% year-on-year by 10% (…) and there is no sign of a significant recovery. ” , says Fitch. In this market alone, this agency forecasts 2.1 million fewer sales, to 21.6 million private vehicles. ” But the weakness is general, ” says Fitch again. ” The United States and Western Europe are expected to fall by nearly 2% each year to 16.9 million and 14 million units respectively.” In addition, the combined sales of Brazil, Russia and of India are down 5.5% since the beginning of the year, a consequence of a sharp fall in India .

Last year, the global automotive market had already fallen 1.5% to 80.6 million units, compared to 81.8 million in 2017. This was the first decline after eight years of uninterrupted growth , since the great financial crisis of 2008-2009.

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