It's been three weeks since the year ended and it's been an incredible year for the automotive sector. Forecasts at the beginning of the year pointed to 3.9% growth and it ended up at 36.2% compared to 2013. Nobody was prepared for what was to come, but in June, a certain publication already guessed...
How did this happen? 2013 already ended with 11% more compared to the previous year. After years of falling down – since 2009 – the car market started to recover in May 2013 without stopping. In January 2014, the president of the sector association said at a press conference that the 150 thousand units were the "water line": it remained at 142 thousand.
Subaru did not sell any cars. Dacia was the brand that grew the most in the Top 20: 91%.
During this period, there was a unanimous opinion that sales growth was the result of company purchases. To some extent, the beginning of the recovery was with the fleets (see the case of Seat or even Renault), but it was fundamentally private consumers who pulled the market, as already shown by 70% of all credit granted.