Portugal: January 2021 new car registrations fall 30.5%

New car registrations in January 2021 fell sharply in Portugal, dropping by 30.5% for passenger cars and by 19.2% in the light commercial vehicle segment.

In a statement, ACAP said: “The fall was only not higher because, in January, several hundred hybrid vehicles were registered whose tax had been paid in 2020. This was due to the increase in ISV, approved in the 2021 Budget”.

In practice, these are pre-registered vehicles that will be channelled into the market over the coming months. The aim is to sell them at prices that do not reflect the tax rise proposed by PAN and approved in the 2021 State Budget.

What changed for hybrids?

The reason is that some hybrid cars saw the Vehicle Tax (ISV) rise by several thousand euros. Even cars using mild hybrid technology to improve efficiency were affected by this increase.

For instance, a passenger car with a 2.0-litre diesel engine and a mild hybrid system may pay €3000 more ISV in 2021 than it did in 2020.

This helps explain Toyota’s 3rd place in the passenger car segment and the 120% change in the number of Lexus registrations.

The figures

A year earlier, in January 2020, each of these segments had already declined:

• 8% in passenger cars
• 11% in light goods vehicles

Over two years, that translates into accumulated losses of:

• 38.5% in passenger cars (2019/2021)
• 30.2% in light commercial vehicles (2019/2021)

So what does that represent in absolute numbers?

• 10 029 passenger car registrations in January 2021, 5 655 fewer records than the 15 684 in January 2019;
• 2098 light goods vehicle registrations in January 2021, 817 more records than the 2915 in January 2019.

The leaders

As in 2020, Peugeot opened 2021 at the top of Portugal’s registration league table. However, while it led both light-vehicle segments in 2020, in 2021 Citroën leads the light commercial vehicle segment.

Renault, the traditional leader across both segments, managed only the lowest step of the podium in light commercial vehicles. In passenger cars, it sits in 5th place. Are these the effects of “Renaulution”, steering the brand towards profitability through higher business margins rather than sales-volume performance?

Looking at the top three brands by number of registrations, the leading positions were taken by Peugeot, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Meanwhile, Dacia-whose Sandero is the best-selling model in Portugal to private customers, according to the brand-did no better than 233 registrations in January 2021.

The tables

The 16 brands with more than 250 passenger car registrations recorded in January 2021 are as follows:

The 11 brands with more than 50 light goods vehicle registrations are as follows:

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