New Car Sales Drastically Fall due to the Pandemic.
March and April usually are busiest for the car industry - but certainly, the coronavirus pandemic has acted as the game changer.
The UK and USA have suffered a nearly 50% loss of new car sales against the March 2019 results. Big European countries - Spain, France, Italy - have seen a 70-85% decline in the sales of new cars.
Due to lockdowns, people can't go to showrooms to take a test drive or talk to a manager displaying a new vehicle. Also, with such drastic financial uncertainty people shy from 5-digit payments as much as they can.
China figures of new car sales, provided by carsalesbase.com (green - '2020')
Such automotive giants as Ford have been introducing an option of deferred payments for new cars - to make sure the buyers are less nervous about such purchases. Similarly, Korean Hyundai has started 'Assurance Job Loss Protection' programme. Meanwhile, the ad services activity for automotive giants havebeen up and running almost untattered for the recent months. As a functional advantage, Toyota has been promoting its still-open service departments as well as no-contact vehicle drop-offs and repairs.
As the safety measures begins to lessen the grip, it is certain that the industry will recover quickly enough now - with minor adaptation to the post-pandemic reality.
