Yves van der Straaten, Secretary General and Technical Director of the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (OICA), expects global production and sales to continue to increase by about 3% in 2014, with a 4% increase in the passenger car market, and 2% for commercial vehicles
What is the OICA forecast for global vehicle production in 2014 and global vehicle sales in 2014?
Forecasting is always extremely difficult, and the current difficulties in several markets make the exercise even more perilous! However, looking at current data and based on past years, we expect that on a global scale, production and sales should continue to increase by about 3%. For the passenger car market, we can reasonably expect a 4% increase, and about 2% for commercial vehicles. Demand for mobility is expected to continue to increase, and looking at the motorisation rate (number of vehicles per inhabitants), as well as the emergence of a middle class in several countries, it is clear that the prospects are still positive.
Where do you expect the fastest growth in vehicle sales in 2014?
Obviously, the mature markets, such as Western Europe, the USA, Japan, etc. have reached, or will soon reach, saturation and their markets are mainly characterised by the replacement of the current fleets. This can clearly be seen in the USA: the current market there is mainly driven by replacement, since the average fleet age is more than 11 years old. The growth is expected to be largely attributable to emerging markets, especially China. Other emerging markets, such as India or Russia, are currently somewhat stalling, but we still believe that they have a clear growth potential for the reasons I mentioned before.
And where do you expect vehicle production to increase the most in 2014?
The clear tendency is that you produce only what you can sell, and you produce it where you sell it. This does not mean that production will only be in countries with a large market, but…
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