Registrations for 2020 and the three quarters of 2021 indicate that as many as 391 516 passenger cars may have disappeared from the market as a result of the pandemic. Looking at optimistic forecasts as recently as 2019, we can assume that if not for the pandemic, the pace of passenger car sales in 2020 and 2021 would have remained at levels similar to 2019.
At the end of 2020, the total number of newly registered passenger cars was 1,200,226, which compared to 2019, where the total number of such registrations was 1,484,787 gives 284,561 fewer cars year-on-year.
We know the registration data for the three quarters of 2021. At this moment we have 1 007 977 registered passenger cars. In the same period of 2019, we had 1,114,932 cars registered. This gives us a result of registration already 106 955 cars less in 2021 comparing the same periods.
And that means up to 391,516 passenger cars disappeared from the market between March 2020 and October 2021. The sources can be traced primarily to pandemics and lockdowns, which triggered an avalanche of subsequent events.
The collapse of new car sales in the early days of the pandemic, among other things, led to a semiconductor crisis that hit the auto market.
The crisis has not only disrupted the production and availability of new cars but has also unbalanced the aftermarket and triggered price increases.
Currently, the industry is also not helped by the forced transition to electromobility.
Such a poor registration performance is only beaten by the 2014 and 2015 figures, where there were 1,046,779 (2014) and 1,146,859 (2015) respectively.
“This means that as a result of the pandemic we have regressed by as much as 6 – 7 years in the sale of passenger cars,” says Marek Trofimiuk member of the management board of autobaza.pl.
And while the first half of 2021 indicated a recovery related to the same period in 2020, it is clear that this trend has changed since July.
Currently, we have 17,794 fewer registrations for the third quarter of 2021 than in 2020. Moreover, there are many indications that the downward trend will continue until the end of the year. This is influenced by huge supply issues in both the new car market and the aftermarket.
The final number of registrations for the whole of 2021 will show us the scale of the crisis. What are the chances of overcoming it? Will we break the downward trend in 2022? We have to wait for the data and developments in the markets…
Certainly, the first half of the year will not be very optimistic, but perhaps the second half of 2022 will be a reversal of that trend…?
How long will we make up these losses? After the 2008 – 2012 crisis, it took at least three years for the rate of registration of motor vehicles to accelerate again…
The data used in the report comes from https://dane.gov.pl/pl and was provided by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister.