The steady revaluation of the Colombian peso versus the US dollar and the free trade agreement with Mexico (therefore no tariffs on vehicle imports) helped take 2010 new car sales to a record 253,869.
A tiny 2010year on year rise of just 835 units versus the previous record year of 2007 clinched the new annual tally milestone. Full year volume grew 37.1% compared with 2009 but was only about 0.3% up on 2007.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
“The 253,869 vehicles sold is good news but clearly a low volume compared with the market’s potential because the motorisation index is just 5.6 cars for every 1,000 inhabitants while, in similar countries, it’s at least double that”, Oliverio García, president of Colombian automotive group Andemos, told just-auto.
He added Colombian sales “could be around 450,000 vehicles/year if not for the expensive tariffs and taxes”. Colombia levies import duty of 35% on European, Asian and American vehicles and none on those from countries with which it has FTAs – México, the Andean countries and the Mercosur zone (which includes the automaking countries of Argentina and Brazil).
While sales of locally assembled cars didn’t grow (Chevrolet -2.5%; Renault, 0.0%; Mazda -0.3%), fully imported unit volume from Mexico grew 177.1%, from Japan 89.2% and Mercosur 68.9%.
The fastest growing segment was SUVs (+64.1%), followed by pickup trucks (+54.6%), passenger cars (+33.9%), trucks (33.4%), LCVs (28.5%) and taxis (11.6%) though bus sales fell 12.3%.
Chevrolet led the brand table with 33.5% market share, followed by Renault (15%), Hyundai (9.8%), Kia (7.7%), Nissan (5.8%), Toyota (5.6%), Mazda (5.4%), VW (2.8%) and Ford (2.7%).
The premium segment accounted for 2% of total sales and was led – again – by BMW (38%) followed by Mercedes-Benz (25.2%), Audi (24.9%), Volvo (8.9%), Porsche (1.9%), Land Rover (1.1%) and Jaguar (0.1%)
Econometría statisticians have forecast 2011 sales of about 254,000 units, but some brands polled by just-auto are reckoning on 260,000.
