(AFP PHOTO)
The domestic automotive market exceeded expectations for the anticipated sales volume during 2014, with the sale of 293,000 cars, compared to 195,900 cars sold the previous year, an increase of 49.6%.
Expectations declared by Automotive Marketing Information Council (AMIC) pointed towards the sale of 280,000 vehicles only.
According to the council’s final report of 2014, sales of private cars made a huge leap, with the sale of 208,000 cars against 133,700 in 2013, with an increase rate of 55%, while bus sales increased by 30%, and trucks by about 41%.
Chairman of AMIC Mustafa Hussein said that in 2014, the Egyptian car market has achieved its highest sales in the past five years, pointing out that the value of sales of private cars increased to EGP 30bn.
The chairman of AMIC expects sales to grow during 2015 to a record 352,000 cars, with a 20% growth rate.
Khaled Hosny, AMIC’s official spokesperson, said the market made a dramatic leap in sales in the recent period, adding that 2014 saw great media and customer awareness of the automarket’s role.
Hosny noted the importance of starting the annual summit for the automotive industry, entitled “Egypt Automotive”, organised by Business News Company as an important factor to support developing the automotive sector.
Chevrolet was on top of the market with 22% of total sales, followed by Hyundai with a market share estimated at approximately 15.7%, then Nissan with share of about 10.4%, according to AMIC’s monitoring of the market during 2014. In fourth place came Toyota with a total of 9%, followed by Kia with 5.6%, then Geely-Ghabbour with 5.6%, Suzuki with 4%, Renault with 3.9%, Mitsubishi with 3.1%, Skoda 2.3%, Peugeot with 2.2% and Speranza with 2%. The remaining brands collectively achieved about 13.7% of the total sales of 2014.
As for private cars, Hyundai maintained its place on top of the market sales, with a share of 21.6% out of 208,000 cars sold during 2014, followed by Nissan, which dominated the market through the support of Sunny’s sales, with a total of 12.2%. Chevrolet comes in third place with a total of 11.9%, Kia with 7.9%, Geely-Ghabbour with 7.8%, Toyota with 7.1%, Renault with 5.5%, Skoda with 3.3% and Peugeot with 3.2%. In 10th place in the market, Mitsubishi came with 3.1%, followed by Esperanza with 2.8% and both Opel and Suzuki with 2%, while the rest of the market of private car brands made up 9.7 % of the market.
Hussein added that the actual percentage of the market growth is 36%, but adding Nissan to AMIC’s survey helped increase the volume of sales to about 49.6%, compared to 2013.
