Serbia Vehicle Market unexpectedly growing in double-digits in 2024 (+15.6%) with YTD figures at 23,839. Total sales in August reached 2,821 units (+2.2%). Top 4 brands posted significant growth in year-on-year volume.
Market Trend and Outlook
Following economic expansion in 2023, Serbia’s GDP growth is anticipated to be 3.5% in 2024. Key growth drivers include increased private consumption ,due to rising real incomes, and exports, benefiting from inflows of foreign direct investment that allowed for an expansion of manufacturing capacities. As Serbia’s economy have proven in recent years to be relatively resilient to external shocks, it is expected to continue the positive growth trend in future years, reaching 4.3% in 2025.
Accordingly, the Serbian vehicle market grew for the 13th consecutive month in August reporting 2,821 new vehicle sales (+2.2%). YTD sales reached 23,839 sales (+15.6%).
Looking at cumulative data up to August 2024 brand-wise, the leader Skoda reported 5,435 sales (+23.4%), followed by Volkswagen at 2,678 (+24.8%). Toyota -up 2 spots- in 3rd position with 2,345 registrations (+38.5%).
Hyundai -up 2 spots- into 4th with 2,295 sales (+48.6%) followed by Renault -down 1 spot- at 1,768 sales (-8.8%), Citroen – up 2 spots- at 1,619 (+44.6%), Fiat – down 5 spots- at 1,531 (-19.9%) and Kia – down 1 spot- in 8th with 1,318 registrations (-6.7%).
Dacia ranked in the 9th spot with 1,235 registrations (+35.4%) and Opel closed the top 10 with 724 cumulative sales (+12.2%).
The Skoda Octavia was still the best-selling model with a 51.4% increase in volume compared to 2023, followed by the Citroen C3, up 132.7% and 16 spots.
Medium-Term Market Trend
In the last decade the Serbian vehicle market fluctuated between the 20k and the mid to high 30k range. In 2011 started a 4 year long collapse that would bring the market from 38,179 sales in 2010 to 19,698 cumulative sales by the end of 2014. Luckily it bounced back in the following year, rising 10.0% in year-on-year volume. Sales continued to grow and the Serbian vehicle market maintained the momentum through 2019, where total volume reached 34,197 registrations, a new all-time high.
The arrival of the pandemic in 2020 caused the Serbian light vehicle market to collapse, with sales falling 23.3% to 26,241.
The downfall was not due to structural issues in the market, in fact it grew back 16.8% in the following year reaching the 30k mark once again. In 2022 the uptrend came to a stop, with total volume falling 5.6% to 28,845.
In 2023, the Serbian vehicle market recovered with full year figures at 30,683, while being up 6.4% from the previous year.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands and top 10 Manufacturers Group.
