Last month, Brazilian vehicle production and sales were the best ever for July.
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According to the Brazilian national automakers’ association (Anfavea), vehicle production was 222,397 units, up 5% on the 211,861 made in July 2005.
Sales of both locally-made and imported vehicles grew 19.5% to 165,807 units, also the best monthly result so far this year. In July 2005 138,744 vehicles were sold.
Highlighting the domination of flexfuel technology in Brazil these days, cars with engines able to run on petrol, alcohol or any mix of the two accounted for 76.6% of sales of both car and light commercial vehicles.
Last month, Fiat topped the sales chart in South America’s biggest market with 40,829 units sold for 24.6% market share. Volkswagen was second (36,767 units; 22.2%) and General Motors was third (35,423 vehicles; 21.3%).
VW, notably, is only one of the top three that sells cars, light commercials, trucks and bus chassis in Brazil – Fiat and GM do not sell trucks or buses.
In contrast to home market sales, however, exports of Brazilian-made vehicles again fell year on year in July. Local automakers exported 76,213 vehicles last month, down 5.1% on the 80,280 units shipped in July 2005.
Anfavea said this was due to the continuous strengthening of the Brazilian real against the US dollar that has hit vehicle exports since last year.
Rogério Louro
