Italian Autos Market in October 2023 grows for the 15th consecutive month, with new sales at 139,052 (+20.1%). YTD figures at 1.32 million are growing 20.5% from the previous year.
Market trend and Outlook
Italy’s economic growth started slowing down last year, halting the post-pandemic rebound which had lifted growth to 7.0% in 2021 and 3.7% in 2022. In 2023 the situation worsen’t, with many projecting GDP to increase this year by just 1.8%. This outlook is confirmed by quarterly trends, with Bank of Italy stating: “The indicators confirm the weakness of domestic demand, which reflects tighter credit conditions, inflation-driven household income erosion and the loss of momentum in the labour market. Sluggish global demand is weighing on exports.”
The Italian auto market on the other hand is performing very well, with sales in October 2023 growing for the 15th consecutive month and new registration reaching 139,052 (+20.1%). YTD figures at 1.32 million are growing 20.5% from the previous year.
Looking at cumulative data up to October 2023 brand-wise, Fiat reports the most sales at 148,932 (-2.2%), followed by Volkswagen at 102,910 (+19.1%) and Toyota at 81,372 (+8.8%).
Dacia rises 2 spots into 4th position with 72,549 sales (+31.4%), in front of Ford with 70,023 units sold (+9.9%), Peugeot at 69,615 (+18.5%) and Renault in 7th with 65,243 registrations (+32.6%).
Jeep rises 2 spots into 8th with 61,679 sales (+46.1%), in front of Audi at 57,164 (+27.0%) and BMW in 10th with 49,192 registrations (+26.2%).
Looking at specific models the Fiat Panda maintains leadership despite selling 3.9% less models compared to the previous year, followed by the Dacia Sandero far behind in second and up 49.0% in YTD sales.
Medium-Term Market Trend
In the last decade the Italian market has had many ups and down. Starting at 1.8 million sales in 2010, it had 3 consecutive years of negative y/y sales with a minimum of 1.29 million reached in 2013. From 2014 up to 2019 the overall trend was positive, reaching a maximum in 2018 of nearly 2 million sales.
At the end of 2019 the Italian market was standing at 1.9 million sales, but with the pandemic in 2020 the market took a substantial hit, moving to the 1.4 million mark. This -27.1% drop marked the Italian auto-market for the following years.
Post-Covid hasn’t looked too good for demand in the Italian market. 2021 showed a slight sign of recovery (+8.9%) that faded away in the following year. In fact, 2022 totaled 1.32 million sales, the lowest of the decade and a 9.6% decrease from the prior year. Despite the overall downtrend, the market did grow in the last 5 months of the year and luckily the momentum continues going into 2023, that started very strong.
There are still some issues that the market will have to confront if it wants to recover from the fall of 2022: first of all the current European sentiment that is pushing more towards EVs is putting negative pressure on demand; and secondly in the last year we have seen a disruption in the global supply chain caused by a lack of raw materials, in particular for microchip production, that has lead manufactures to increase overall prices.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 models.
