Coronavirus crisis sinks car sales

The coronavirus crisis has reached the Finnish car sales sector. If in March passenger car registrations had resisted the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic with a fall of 0.9%, in April disaster struck and registrations fell by 38.6%.

According to Statistics Finland data, in April a total of 13,043 new motor vehicles were registered, of which 7,244 were automobiles. First registrations decreased by 26.3% from the corresponding month of the previous year.

More specifically, the number of new passenger cars registered was 5,981, which was 38.6% down from the year before. The share of new diesel-driven passenger cars was 17.2%. These numbers are exclusive of the vehicles on the Åland Islands.

January-April

The collapse of April sales is already reflected in the accumulated figures for the first four months of the year.

In the January to April period of 2020 a total of 58,243 vehicles were first registered. Compared to the year before, there was an decrease of 10.1%%.

The number of passenger cars first registered in the January to April period was 34,252, which is 11.8% down from the year before.

The most common passenger car makes first registered in the January to April period were Toyota, Skoda and Volkswagen.