The automotive market is seeing a slight recovery from the crisis of the sales decrease that marked it since the beginning of this year. The pace of retreat started to slow down. Sales registered a decrease of 25.2% in the first five months of this year, a slight improvement after the market saw a retreat of 31.2% during the first quarter. The market sold 85,300 units between early January and late May 2016, compared to 114,100 units in the same period in 2015. A report by the Automotive Marketing Information Council (AMIC) showed a decrease of 24% in the sales of private cars in the first five months of this year: 58,500 units were sold compared to 76,700 units sold as of the end of May 2015. Bus sales declined by 27%, registering 10,300 units compared to 14,100 units year-on-year (y-o-y). The same trend happened with the sales of trucks, which decreased by 29%, selling 16,400 units compared to 23,100 units as of the end of May 2015. As for the sales of locally assembled cars, they retreated by 20.3%, selling 42,800 units in the first five months of this year compared to 53,800 units in the period of comparison. The sales of the imported cars also retreated by 29.6%, reaching 42,200 units compared to 60,200 units y-o-y. The AMIC report said the automotive sales retreated by only 6% in May, which is an improvement in the sales of the automotive market. The market registered 18,800 sold cars compared to 20,100 sold cars in May 2015. According to the report, private car sales reached 13,600 units in May 2016 with a growth of 5% compared to 12,900 cars in May 2015. Bus sales fell by 36.4%, recording 1,800 buses sold compared to 2,900 buses in the comparison period. Truck sales also fell by 20.6% to reach 3,300 trucks compared to 4,200 trucks in May 2015. The report showed that Chevrolet reported the highest sales rate in the market from January to May 2016, Chevy made up 21.5% of total sales, while Hyundai ranked second with 20.2% of the total sales. The auto market is now witnessing a fierce competition between the two brands to acquire the highest sales rate in the market as Chevrolet has dominated the market for several consecutive years. Nissan came in third place with a sales rate of 12.4%, followed by Toyota with 6.1%. Mitsubishi ranked fifth with 4.8%, and Suzuki ranked sixth with 4.8%. Kia came in the seventh position and made up 4.4% of the market, followed by Opel with 4.2% and Chery Ghabbour with 3.1% of the market. Then Peugeot comes in the tenth place accounting for 2.3% of total sales. King Long and Geely Ghabbour accounted for 1.8% and 1.7% respectively. The rest of the brands in the market made up roughly 12.7% of the total sales in the first five months of 2016. The automotive market declined by 29.3% during the first quarter (Q1) of 2016, amid a slight improvement after the market decline of 31.2% during in Q1. The market witnessed trading of 66,400 units in the period from early January until the end of April, compared to 93,900 units y-o-y. The Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) reported that sales of passenger cars during Q1 of 2016 declined by 30% to register 44,900 cars, compared to 63,700 cars by the end of April 2015. Bus sales declined by 25%,to register 8,400 buses, compared to 11,250 buses. Trucks sales declined by 31% with 13,000 trucks sold, compared to 18,900 trucks by the end of April 2015. The locally assembled cars sales declined by 25.1%, registering 33,200 units in Q1 of 2016, compared to 44,300 units y-o-y, while imported car sales declined by 33%, recording 33,200 cars, compared to 49,600 cars in a y-o-y.
