MENA 2018. Saudi Arabia & Israel dragged the market down 5.2%

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MENA Car Market in 2018 fell down 5.2% with 1.922.590 sales, signing the fourth consecutive year of decline, having lost over 1 million sales from the 2014 record. Saudi Arabia has dragged down the region, while Algeria and Iraq are recovering.

Economic Environment

Growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region rebounded to an average of 2% in 2018, up from an average 1.4% in 2017. The modest rebound in growth is driven mostly by the recent rise in oil prices, which has benefitted the region’s oil exporters while putting pressure on the budgets of oil importers. The rebound also reflects the impact of modest reforms and stabilization efforts undertaken in some countries in the region. The report forecasts that regional growth will continue to improve modestly, to an average of 2.8% by the end of 2020 while there is the ongoing risk that instability in the region could worsen and dampen growth.

Market Trend

The automotive industry in the Middle East and North Africa region has stopped its growth in the 2014, immediately after having hit the 3 million units milestone for the first time.

Since 2014 the market declined to 2.02 million units in the 2017 and will further lose this year.

The key reason of the decline is related to the fall of oil price in the international market, which created deficit in Gulf countries, moving governments to apply restrictive economic policy and to increase taxes, with VAT introduced for the first time in Saudi Arabia and UAE. Additional reason for the Algerian market fall are related to the new automotive national plan, introduced in the 2014, which killed the market.

CountrySales 2013Sales 2014Sales 2015Sales 2016Sales 2017Sales 2018
Algeria428508338097262168129449103668132581
Bahrain540186166864178490223760638339
Egypt207370279768271759207580129254182964
Iraq11703611328365272324523944757319
Israel212670239761254748286701278989263020
Jordan291036879961154439134422029319
Kuwait152284160874160138113998104619106223
Lebanon370023838039078515965227241523
Morocco120408121729131914158928165489173012
Oman215087211456197901155680146161126284
Qatar891539856194818714905332250163
Saudi Arabia746723821679844689676365528404411740
Syria429802395414297915879789918
Tunisia479595349057640605176251152529
UAE342524391513408252306087271307242449
Yemen1454861068584299237825207
Total2857373,0593029118,1242936588,562355927,6542029029,0051922590,1

In the 2018 data report sales volume at 1.92 million (-5.3%) with the regional performance dragged down by heavy lost in Saudi Arabia, down 22.1%, and in the second largest market, Israel, down 5.7%. On positive tone Algeria, thanks to the start-up of several local plants and up 27.9%, and Iraq, after the end of civil war, up 45.3%

Rank 2018Rank 2017CountrySales 2017Sales 2018Variation 2018
68Algeria10366813258127,9%
1314Bahrain37605,9538339,11,9%
46Egypt12925418296441,6%
913Iraq394475731945,3%
22Israel278989263020-5,7%
1412Jordan4422029319-33,7%
87Kuwait104619,1651062231,5%
1211Lebanon5227241523-20,6%
54Morocco1654891730124,5%
75Oman146161126284-13,6%
1110Qatar53321,750163-5,9%
11Saudi Arabia528403,9333411740-22,1%
1515Syria7978991824,3%
109Tunisia62510,9970552529-16,0%
33UAE271307,26242449-10,6%
1616Yemen3782520737,7%
Totale2029029,0051922590,1-5,2%