Now that it's August and new car sales have passed 100,000 units, it seems almost certain that we will reach 150,000 cars sold in November.
If so, we move to a galaxy other than the one we've been in. The 150,000 new cars sold are the number needed for dealers, on average, to have a sustainable sales ratio. Explaining: as demand in the automobile market has to be stimulated, the number of dealerships matters. People have to see the cars and try them out. And where? At dealerships.
June, which is always the best month for car sales, was the first test for this to happen. At that time, sales remained close to the monthly average (10.83% of sales for the whole year, 2010-2014), although the year-on-year variation was the lowest for the year: 27%. How is this explained? March, April and May had been exceptionally good months, with the top two over 50% above last year!
The month of July exceeds 100,000 cars sold, accelerating the growth rate (34%) that had been “smoothed” by June (27%). If no abnormal event happens, projections made by Fleet Magazine indicate that we will reach 170 thousand units (see chart). The car market will be, for lack of a better word, normal.
Why normal? Since 2011, the car market is below 200 thousand cars sold. This is a value that was surpassed for the first time in the distant days of 1988 (a rise of 64.1%, the highest ever so far) and which only broke in 2009.
The automobile association never tires of saying that these numbers are far from what the automobile market was like in years prior to 2012 – the year in which the sector's crisis set in, and in which sales fell by 41%, after 30% for the year previous.
But what is the optimal size of the Portuguese market? It is common to hear today that there will be 200 thousand vehicles, compared to countries with a similar number of inhabitants – but without considering the purchasing power. But at the beginning of the year, we were only expected to reach 150,000. And these hardly ever escape.