Global car industry revenue hit $100bn by pandemic

The Covid-19 coronavirus is severely impacting consumer and business behaviour and threatens to erase around $100bn in global full-year revenues from the automotive industry with UK car sales having already fallen 44.4% in the key month of March.

According to Ian Henry, owner of AutoAnalysis and collaborator with the SMMT, lost European sales volumes are forecast to climb to 2.6m cars with a worth of €66bn ,while in North America they will hit around 2m cars valued at approximately $52bn.

Henry said each further week that European sites were closed would cost the industry an additional €8bn in lost production value. In North America, the figure would be up to $7.5bn.

Nissan, Ford and General Motors who were among those expecting to reopen by mid-April or May are now saying sites are closed “indefinitely”.

“I can’t see any semblance of normality returning before May, at the very earliest,” Henry told the Financial Times.

In the UK, March is normally an important month of the year for new sales due to the number plate changes. Specifically, new car sales fell to 254,684 vehicles last month, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

The pandemic has meant 203,370 fewer cars being sold in March than in 2019.

The decline was widespread in the sector – private sales fell 40.4%year-on-year, while fleet sales were down 47.4%.

New car sales may continue to struggle until the impact of coronavirus starts to wane and the economy returns to some degree of normality with restrictions on people’s movements eased and businesses starting to benefit from improving activity, including the opening of car showrooms said the SMMT.