Colombia’s vehicle market in September 2023 falls for the 12th consecutive month, reporting 15,611 new sales (-34.7%). YTD figures at 134,500 are down 31.2% from the previous year.
Market Trend and Outlook
The Colombian economy, registered as the 4th largest in Latin America, has experienced a strong growth in the last decade. Despite GDP strongly rising at 7.3 percent in 2022, the economy overheated with activity above the potential, an accelerated inflation, and a high current account deficit. As the unwinding of repressed consumption comes to an end, continued monetary and fiscal tightening continues, and external demand remain weak.
This negative outlook on the economy is reflected in the Colombian vehicle market, which in September 2023 falls for the 12th consecutive month, reporting 15,611 new sales (-34.7%). YTD figures at 134,500 are down 31.2% from the previous year.
Looking at cumulative data up to September 2023 brand-wise, Renault ranks in 1st with 20,402 sales (-44.6%) and Toyota rises 1 spot into 2nd with 18,420 (-2.9%).
Chevrolet ranks in 3rd with 17,422 sales (-44.2%), followed by Mazda at 13,049 (+9.4%), Kia at 10,890 (-24.9%), Suzuki at 7,498 (-51.0%) and Nissan with 6,398 sales (-26.3%).
The Volkswagen falls 1 spot into 8th with 4,767 (-59.1%), followed by Ford in 9th at 4,355 (+3.5%) and Foton with 3,820 sales (-13.2%).
The Renault Duster is the best selling model despite losing 31.7% from the previous year, followed closely by the Toyota Corolla Cross up 13.7% and 10 spots.
Medium-Term Market Trend
In the last decade the Colombian light vehicle market has had many ups and downs. Starting in 2010 at 230,770 sales the market grew 39.5% in 2011 reaching the current all-time high at 321,887. The brief uptrend reversed in the following year falling 5.3% in 2012 and 6.5% in 2013 ending the year at 284,879 registrations. In 2014 the market grew 11.1% back up to 316,482 sales, to drop back down in the following year. From 2015 to 2018 the light vehicle market remained in a downtrend reaching a low of 257,173 by the end of 2018.
Before the pandemic the Light vehicle market in Colombia grew a slight 2.3% in 2019, but by march 2020 the market began to collapse reaching by the end of the year a variation of -30%, with sales at 184,057.
2021 was a great year of recovery for the Colombian market that grew 36.1% to 271,835 sales. The projections for 2022 show that the year will end on a positive note, continuing the uptrend started in the previous year. Despite the good news, there are a few issues in the automotive industry that are going to affect the Colombian market in the future: the disruption in the global supply chain caused by a lack of raw materials, in particular for the production of microchips and Governments push towards Evs, an expensive alternative for low income consumers. At the moment affects from this last point are very mild, due to the low adoption of BEVs in South American countries (0.45% of total market share in South America).
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands and top 10 Manufacturer Groups.
