Outlook: Steady Sale Growth Ahead for South American Car Market

The South American car market has ended four years of sharp decline and is headed for slow but steady growth through at least 2024, LMC Automotive predicts.

Last year, sales in the region shrank 12% to 3.47 million units, notes Ashley Reid, LMC’s analyst for South America.

Sales this year in the region’s two largest markets, Argentina and Brazil, are growing at 33% and 4%, respectively, according to Ashley Reid, LMC’s analyst for South America. She predicts that full-year deliveries in 2017 will rise 25% to 848,000 units in Argentina, 9% to 2.16 million in Brazil and 11% to 3.86 million for the entire continent.

Reid anticipates that overall new-car sales in South America will advance 2% in 2018 to 3.95 million units, then grow at about 4% annually over the following six years. Her forecast projects sales in 2024 will reach 5.10 million units.

Sales of conventional cars, SUV/crossovers and pickup trucks each grew about 1% in January-July. Cars commanded two-thirds of the market. SUVs and pickups each captured 15% shares.

South America’s top-selling models through the first seven months of 2017 are the Chevrolet Onix five-door supermini, Ford Ka city car, Volkswagen Gol mini-hatchback, Hyundai’s Brazil-only HB20 five-door mini-hatch and Renault Sandero subcompact hatch.

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