PwC Autofacts: Car sales in Romania will end the year on the rise but production will drop

Sales of new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in Romania will end 2023 on the rise, estimated at around 7% compared to 2022, but local production will decline, according to the PwC Autofacts report. In fact, among the five markets analyzed (Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia), the local production is the only one estimated to decrease, by 3.2% year-on-year.

Daniel Anghel, partner, PwC Romania, believes that on the production side, although there has been a slight recovery in some months, the forecasts for the whole year are not too optimistic.

“We expect the resumption of light commercial vehicle production in 2023 to partially offset the rapid loss of automobile production. Both Ford and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi have plans until 2030 with Transit Courier and Dacia Dokker,” he said.

By 2022, Romania placed third in Central Europe in terms of car production, after the Czech Republic and Slovakia and ahead of Poland and Hungary. This year, however, it will drop one place to four, being overtaken by Poland, PwC said. By 2026, it would also be surpassed by Hungary.

In total, production in the five Central European states analyzed increased in the first half by 16.9% compared to the first six months of 2022, to 2.1 million units. The forecast growth rate for the whole year is 9%, with Poland estimated to register the highest increase of 33.4%, while the only decrease is expected in Romania - minus 3.2%.

When it comes to car sales, these increased by 13.8% in the second quarter compared to the same period last year and by 59.6% compared to April-June 2020 in the five markets, the PwC report revealed. The 7% increase in sales expected for this year places Romania in second place in the region, after Hungary (7.7%) and ahead of Slovakia (6.8%), Poland (3%) and the Czech Republic 2%.

With a 45.9% increase in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period last year, Romanian carmaker Dacia sold more cars than the following five brands combined during this period.

Both light commercial vehicle and passenger vehicle sales are expected to continue approaching pre-pandemic 2019 levels. The 2019 passenger vehicle sales level will be surpassed in 2026, even if growth rates will slow significantly, according to Autofacts estimates.

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