Tanzanian Vehicles Market in 2024 is accelerating quickly, up 45.8% to reach 2,801 units. The standout performer was Kia, climbing 14 spots to rank 5th.
Market Trend and Outlook
Tanzania’s economy is projected to grow by 5.7% in 2024 and 6% in 2025, driven by agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism, supported by public investments and business reforms. Inflation is expected to decline to 3.3% in 2024, while the fiscal deficit is set to stabilize at 2.5% of GDP, financed through domestic and external borrowing.
Structural transformation remains slow due to challenges in industrial productivity, limited financial market depth, and infrastructure constraints, with manufacturing’s GDP share stagnant at 8% since the mid-1990s. Key reforms include improving the business environment, expanding the tax base, deepening financial markets, and securing better access to concessional financing for long-term development and climate resilience.
Tanzania’s Vehicle Market is experiencing impressive momentum, up 45.8% in 2024 to hit 2,801 units. The market surpassed the 2K treshold after some years of stagnation.
Looking at cumulative data up to December 2024 brand-wise, the leader Toyota grew 29.6% and ranked 1st, followed in 2nd by Isuzu, up 80.4%, and in 3rd by Ford, up 39%.
Medium-Term Market Trend
The new light vehicles market in Tanzania is stable in the range between the 2,000 and the 3,000 annual units, still penalized by the easy access of imported used vehicles.
In the last decade, the market performed between the lower peak of 2,035 units in 2016 and the higher of 3,314 in 2013, with 2018 at 2,258 units. In 2019 the light vehicles market has lost 20.2%, mainly due to a very low Q4, ending the year with only 1,914 sales, the lowest level since 2010.
The arrival of the pandemic in 2020 caused the global automotive market to collapse. This being said the effects on Tanzania’s vehicle market were limited with respect to other countries. In fact in 2020 sales fell only 8.5% to 3,021.
In the following year new light vehicle registrations remained flat compared to the previous year, totaling 3,005 (-0.5%).
Sales finally grew in 2022 reaching a total of 3,153, 4.3% more than the prior year.
Sales in 2023 lost value, down 10.3% with YTD figures reaching 2,826 registrations.
