Turnover in the used car market peaked in 2021

The growth of the market was helped by two factors, the shortage of chips in the automotive industry played an important role in the short term: the deficit in the new car market diverted some of the demand to the used car market, explained Bertalan Halász, CEO of JóAutók.hu. He added that in the long run, the continuous, dynamic growth of the Hungarian car fleet alone will stimulate the used car market, while in 2012 the number of cars in circulation did not reach 3 million, by the end of 2021 this number was over 4 million.

The average age of passenger cars on the market is 15 years, which is also reflected in the composition of vehicles changing hands in the used car market: last year, more than 75 percent of sales were made to vehicles that were at least ten years old.

According to the expectations of JóAutók.hu, the new car market is expected to normalize by the second half of 2022, so that dealers will sell 2-3 percent more new cars than last year's 122 thousand last year. All this will also stimulate the used car market through replaced cars, another source of supply, used car imports, is also expected to expand slightly in 2022.

As a result of all this, JóAutók.hu expects a few percent expansion in the domestic used car market, which means a rewriting of around 840,000 this year.

Das WeltAuto, the only nation with a nationwide network of used car dealers, said in a statement to MTI on Thursday that the spike in the used car market was not dampened by rising supply prices last year either. For some models, prices have risen by as much as 15 percent and prices are expected to rise until the new car market recovers.

Péter Tóth, Sales Director of Das WeltAuto Centrum, said in a statement that due to the lack of chips, production and delivery times have increased significantly at all car manufacturers around the world, allowing customers to switch to new cars instead of new ones. Rising demand, in turn, led to declining supply, which in turn pushed up prices.

Based on market expectations, prices could rise further in 2022, as the new car market is projected to recover by 2024 in the second half of 2022 at the earliest, the report added.
Das WeltAuto is a used car division of Porsche Hungaria, which sells Volkswagen Group's brands and has a sales network of 30 dealerships. In 2021, the entire network sold 7,442 cars in Hungary, with which it achieved a nearly 20 percent share of used cars sold by dealers in the 0-7 age group.

(Source: autokalauz.co.hu; MTI | Image: pixabay.com)