Significant sales declines

ACROSS TOP 10 MARKETS ... AND OZ

CHINA WAS THE first country to report COVID-19, so its market was hit earlier than others, but its recovery has also been faster: the market finished 2020 with sales down just 2 percent. Given its drop a year earlier was 8 percent, that’s a solid result. The US (-15 percent), Japan (-12 percent) and Germany

(-19 percent) experienced double-digit market drops but still suffered less than France and Brazil. Significantly for the UK, its even steeper decline allowed Brazil to climb into seventh spot – the first time it has done so since 2014. At least there is evidence of sales recovering into 2021. The Australian new car market dipped below 1m sales after years of decline – with locked-down Victoria hardest dragging the national market down – but has bounced back at the start of this year in a big way.