INDICATA Market Watch: Q1 2022 online B2C used car sales down 1.7% over previous year
Q1 2022 online B2C used car sales down 1.7% over previous year
Despite online B2C used car sales in March being 13.5% above the previous month they were 12.7% behind March 2021. This means sales for the first quarter of 2022 are 1.7% behind the same period last year and 5.7% below the pre-Covid-19 Q1 2019.
Whilst manufacturer-backed tactical registrations, i.e., cars less than 1-year-old, increased by 36% over those done in February the fact that this is 24% lower than March 2021 shows the constraints manufacturers are under due to the semiconductor chip shortages.
This has meant dealers and traders are having to support sales from existing stock and even though online B2C used stock levels increased by 3.2% going into April compared to the start of the previous month, they are 11.6% lower than at the same point last year.
2021 saw some manufacturers pushing BEVs to minimise the impact of the CAFE fines but this has proved to be a benefit going into 2022. Online B2C used BEV sales have increased by 99% in a year and this has pushed up the rate of stock turn by 139% over the same period to 7.9x. Whilst total sales by volume for BEVs remain well behind the traditional petrol and diesel cars BEVs are now the fastest-selling powertrain by some margin.
Our price index is based on a consistent pool of vehicles indexed against January 2021 and has been reset for the start of the new year which creates a typical uplift of around 2%-4%, followed normally by a lifecycle driven downward curve in average prices. With supply of the right quality used stock constrained and demand remaining high, online B2C used car prices have increased by a further 0.9 percentage points going into April compared to the start of the previous month.
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Background
On the 24th of March INDICATA published its first White Paper “COVID-19 To what extent will the used car market be affected (and how to survive)?”. This document explored:
Early market trends - Initial impact of the virus and the social distancing measures implemented.
Market scenarios – A range of impacts based on infection rate development and historical market data.
Mitigation – Risk assessment by sector coupled with potential corrective actions.
We committed to keeping the market updated with live data, volume, and price, to keep abreast of the fast-moving environment.
As such we are pleased to announce “Indicata Market Watch”.
How do we produce our data?
Indicata analyses 9m Used Vehicle adverts across Europe every day. To ensure data integrity, our system goes through extensive data cleansing processes.
The Sales (deinstall data) in this report are based on advertisements of recognised automotive retailers of true used vehicles. As such, it does not include data related to private (P2P) advertisements.
Where an advert is removed from the internet, it is classified as a “Sale”.
Appendix
INDICATA Market Watch March 2022 (The Netherlands)
INDICATA Market Watch March 2022 (Europe)
