Car sales continue to drop into 2021

In the first two months, car sales continued on their downward spiral that started two years ago, compounded when the coronavirus pandemic struck the industry in 2020.

According to the Cyprus Statistical Services data, car registrations in February alone dropped by 16.2% to 2,478 compared to 2,957 in the same month last year.

In January, the overall annual drop was 17.9%, although there was no pandemic in the same month last year.

New vehicle registrations in February fell 10.8% to 921 from 1,033 last year. Used cars fell 19.1% with 1,557 registrations down from 1,924 in 2020.

In the first two months, January-February 2021, the registrations of saloon passenger cars decreased by 17.1% to 5,229, from 6,309 in the same period of 2020.

Of total saloon car registrations, 1,777 or 34% were new, and the overwhelming majority, 3,452 or 66%, were used cars.

Struck by the pandemic and national lockdowns, car importers suffered their worst year since 2016, with registrations in 2020 declining 18.4%, to 30,828, form 37,802.

And 2020 was the second year running that passenger car sales were in negative territory. Overall, in 2020, Cyprus vehicle registrations recorded a 16.1% dip, with passenger car sales down by 7,000.

Passenger saloon car sales decreased to 30,828 from 37,802 in 2019, recording a fall of 18.4% (sales were down 7% the year prior).

Last year, total passenger saloon cars, 10,237 or 33.2%, were new, and 20,591 or 66.8% were used.

One year ago, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation officially announced that COVID-19 could be classified as a pandemic.

“The WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction,” the organisation’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom said at the time. “We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.”

Back then, the WHO reported 118,000 cases across 114 countries, urging policy makers to take aggressive action in order to change the course of the pandemic. “This is not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch every sector,” Tedros Adhanom warned back then, in a statement that sounds ominous from today’s perspective.

Twelve months later, there have been 118 million cases of COVID-19 around the world, with 2.6 million dying from the disease. And while falling case numbers and the acceleration of the vaccine rollout have sparked some long overdue optimism around the world and especially in the U.S., health experts are warning not to get ahead of ourselves as the virus remains an imminent threat for the time being, especially with more infectious variants on the rise.

According to the WHO, the seven-day average of daily new cases climbed to 416,000 on Wednesday, the highest it’s been since February 11. Several countries are now stuck in the difficult position of wanting to open up after months of lockdown, while also seeing new cases trend upwards again. The B.1.1.7 variant of the virus in particular is cause for concern, as data suggests that the rapidly spreading mutation is not only highly infectious, but also potentially more deadly than the original SARS CoV-2 virus. (Statista)