INDICATA Market Watch: Online B2C used car prices jump 0.9 percentage points in a month

Online B2C used car prices jump 0.9 percentage points in a month

Online B2C used car prices jumped 0.9 percentage points in July putting average prices at the start of August 8.0pp higher than at the start of last year. As our price index is based on a consistent pool of vehicles indexed against January 2021 with a 2-4% uplift for the new year, followed normally by a lifecycle driven downward curve in average prices this means the real increase is even higher.

Whilst July online B2C used car sales were 15.4% lower than in June they were 6.1% above July 2021 but that is not enough to reverse the downfall in sales so far this year. Online B2C used sales for July YTD are 4.4% lower than the first seven months of last year and 4.2% behind the same period in 2019.

Poor new car sales over the last couple of years combined with the semiconductor issue restricting manufacturer backed tactical registrations has impacted sales of all powertrains month-on-month. However, both BEVs and hybrids have seen strong growth over the last 12 months with BEV sales in July 63.1% above July 2021 and hybrids up 35.7% over the same period.

Demand for BEVs continues to rise and outperform the other powertrains. BEV stock turn increased by 94% in July compared to a 23% increase in hybrid stock turn with petrol and diesel only increasing by 17% and 7% respectively. This means BEV stock turn of 5.6x makes it the fastest-selling powertrain whilst used diesel cars are now the slowest-selling in the Dutch market.

A 1.1% reduction in the level of online B2C used car stocks going into August compared to the start of July means stock levels are now 6.8% lower than in August 2021 and 18.3% behind where they stood in August 2019.

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 stock levels still falling but strong demand prices jumped 0.8 percentage points in our used car price index going into July which means average online B2C car retail prices are now 7.2pp higher than at the end of last year.

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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 August 2022 (The Netherlands)
INDICATA Market Watch August 2022 (Europe)