China And US Remain The Largest Car Markets In 2021, India In 4th Place

The auto sector globally has been working under immense pressure and challenging conditions. With a raw material shortage, semiconductor issues, and volatile retail conditions, the auto industry took a big hit during the pandemic. Nevertheless, the recent sales data from global markets reveals that over 82.1 million vehicles including passenger cars, vans and light commercial vehicles were sold across the world in 2021, witnessing a hike of five per cent year-on-year. The data also revealed that China and the US remained the world's largest auto markets, while India stood in fourth place in terms of volumes.

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China remains unbeatable as the world's largest car market with 11% of its volumes coming from EVs

Starting with China, the market remained the least affected by production issues in 2021, as sales stood at 26.3 million units in 2021, up by 4 per cent from 2020 and 6 per cent from 2019. Meanwhile, the US sold 15 million units last year, with sales up by 4 per cent over 2020. However, sales were down when compared to pre-pandemic levels when sales stood at 17 million units in 2019. Between China and the US, the former saw an 11 per cent contribution of electric vehicles in total sales, while EVs accounted for about 3 per cent of the market in the latter. In Europe, EVs contribute about 10 per cent to the total sales volume.

India is the third-largest market in the Asia Pacific region after China and Japan. India also saw the highest year-on-year growth when compared to other countries

With respect to the Indian market, auto sales stood over 3.5 million units in 2021, growing by a healthy 26 per cent year-on-year when compared to 2020. Sales were also up by 1 per cent when compared to 2019. With respect to sales, India saw the highest year-on-year growth in contrast with other top five markets globally. Meanwhile, Japan was the third-largest market by volume with 4.3 million vehicles sold in 2021, a decline of 3 per cent over 2020 and 14 per cent over 2019.

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The world's fifth-largest car market, Germany, saw sales stand at 2.8 million units, witnessing a decline of 9 per cent over 2020 and 26 per cent in 2019. The other countries that made it to the top 10 auto markets included France in sixth place, followed by the UK, Brazil, Korea and Canada. While Korea moved up to ninth place, Italy dropped to 12th in 2021. In Africa and the Middle East region, Saudi Arabia was the biggest market with over 528,000 units sold last year, followed by South Africa which sold 437,000 units.

Source: Motor1.com