Chilean Vehicles Market drops again in November 2024. Monthly sales registered 24,044 new registrations (-4.5%). YTD figures at 265,728 were down 5.7% from the prior year. Suzuki grew 12.1% and 2 spots while leader Toyota fell 11.6%.
Market Trend and Outlook
Looking at cumulative data up to November 2024 brand-wise, Toyota maintained leadership with 21,179 (-11.6%), followed by Hyundai -up 1 spot- at 18,682 (+1.5%) in front of Chevrolet -down 1 spot- with 18,293 sales (-9%) and Suzuki -up 2 spots- with 17,828 sales (+12.1%).
Kia -down 1 spot- ranked in 5th position with 17,248 sales (+3.7%), followed by Peugeot -up 1 spot- at 14,946 sales (-6.2%), Ford -up 1 spot- at 13,976 (+17.3%) and MG -up 1 spot- with 10,779 new registrations (+1.2%)
Mitsubishi gained 1 spot ranking into 9th position with 9,998 sales (+1.5%), followed by Changan -up 3 spots- closing the top 10 with 8,976 new registrations (+7.9%).
Looking at specific models the Toyota Hilux secured leadership despite a 6.7% year-on-year loss in sales, followed by the Mitsubishi L200 down 3.9%.
Medium-Term Market Trend
In the last decade the Chilean vehicles market has had many ups and downs. From 2011 to 2015 the market fluctuated in the low 200k range. First rising to a maximum of 263,146 in 2013 to then fall down to a minimum of 211,810 in 2015. By the end of 2016 the vehicles market in Chile had already gained 9.0% compared to the previous year, with 2017 following suit growing 52.5% and 2018 reporting a peak of 372,646 sales. 2019 marked the end of this 3 year uptrend, with sales reaching 369,864 but the end of the year.
The arrival of the pandemic in 2020 caused the market to drop 29.9% back down to 259,299.
It is clear that the issues faced during the pandemic weren’t due to structural problems in the industry, in fact, in 2021 the market reported an amazing growth, gaining 60.3% up to an all time high of 415,612 sales. The positive momentum continued into 2022, that totaled 425,856 new registrations, a 2.5% growth from the prior year. Despite the new-all time high, the second half of the 2022 strongly underperformed, with the last 5 months of the year posting losses.
A combination of factors are behind the current industry struggle: 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). In fact during the 2023 the market fell 26.7% with 312,191 registrations.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands and Top 10 Manufacturers Group.