Passenger car registrations rise 51% in January

Passenger car and SUV registrations have risen by 51.4% in January, reaching 64,147 units. This increase is partly due to units sold in December that were registered in the first month of the year, but mainly to the fact that market volume in the previous year sat at very low levels due to the microchip crisis and transport bottlenecks.

As for CO2 emissions, the average of vehicles sold stands at 118.3 grams of CO2 per kilometre, which translates into 0.13% less than the average emissions of passenger cars sold in January 2022. Looking at sales channels, private sales reached 32,040 registered units, up 48.6%, but down 21% compared with pre-pandemic January.

Similarly, the business market with 27,962 sales shows a 45.6% increase over the previous year, but a 14.7% decline compared with 2019. Meanwhile, rent-a-car sales, which fell sharply last year, grew 157.5% with 4,145 registrations, but are down 68.4% against January 2019 data.

This is how the market has evolved in January 2023

Félix García, communication and marketing director at ANFAC, has pointed out that “we are starting the year with a increase in sales above 50%. It is good news, but it must be viewed in perspective. The effects of the pandemic and of Storm Filomena in the January months of previous years distort the reality of the vehicle market in Spain. The relevant fact is that we are still 26% below January 2020 figures, when we did not yet know about Covid-19. 2023 is a key year for the recovery of the automotive sector.”

For Raúl Morales, communication director at FACONAUTO, has noted that “the strong increase in sales at the start of the year actually reflects how unstable the automotive market is, since it is mainly due to the fact that in January we recorded units that were not registered in December because of problems transporting vehicles from factories and logistics centres to dealerships. Therefore, we cannot speak of a change in trend, because the context weighing on the market remains the same, and what we can expect in the coming months is a return to very low registration levels.”

For its part, Tania Puche, communication director at Ganvam, wanted to highlight that “the change of year has brought a change in registration trends, allowing us to face the dreaded January slump with double-digit growth, after a 2022 to forget. We cannot pop the champagne yet, because we remain well below pre-pandemic levels and the 100,000 monthly units that, in theory, our market should have given its level of motorisation, population and per capita income.”