Europe PC market forecasts 2024: Inovev expects lower growth in 2024
- The registrations volume in Europe (scope of the left graph below) of passenger cars (PCs) will probably reach 12.9 million units over the whole of 2023, representing an increase of 14% compared to 2022 (11.3 million units).
- This increase reflects a post-covid catch-up. But this catch-up remains very modest: 1.6 million additional vehicles sold in 2023 compared to 2022. However, taking the 2019 market as a reference (16 million vehicles), that is an additional 15 million vehicles should have been sold between 2021 et 2023 and not 1.6 million. The question is: will a higher catch-up take place in 2024 and 2025? The debate is open.
- What is certain is that the catch-up will not be massive. The “Covid” situation, which could have only been cyclical, was the basis of a structural change of fewer vehicle purchases. This trend has been amplified by the significant increase of the vehicles prices, whether thermal or electric. One question is: will the price of vehicles decrease, making it possible to reach a new target of customers currently discouraged by the necessary purchasing budget (and this budget risks further increasing through the reduction in subsidies). This could happen in 2 ways:
§ The launch onto the European market by European carmakers of smaller and more affordable vehicles.
§ The rise of Chinese imports.
- But the effects of such actions will only be weak in 2024, and could increase in the following years. We therefore anticipate growth in 2024 compared to 2023 of 1 to 5%.