Second-hand car market booms in Hungary, 2024 could be a record year
After the monthly volume of used car sales hovered around 70,000 last year, the domestic market has seen a spectacular rise since the beginning of the year, said Bertalan Halász, CEO of JóAutók.hu, according to a company statement.
Already in February and March, the number of vehicles changing hands was consistently above 75,000, but the preliminary volume of over 80,000 in April is an unexpected development, even if the final figure may be slightly below 80,000.The spike in activity is due to a combination of factors. On the one hand, the fall in inflation has rebalanced the income situation of the population (helped by the high yields currently being offered by government bonds), and on the other, interest rates have fallen sharply, boosting credit sales.
In some segments of the used car market, last year's price falls have still not been followed by a rapid rebound, with many cars still being offered at affordable prices. In addition, in the first four months of the year, 10% more new cars were sold and almost 4% more imported used cars were imported, which also gave a further boost to the domestic used car market by bringing replacement vehicles onto the market.
In the past year or two, many people have postponed their purchases due to soaring used car prices and falling real wages, and some of these transactions are now materialising. As a result, it is mainly used cars that are coming onto the market in greater numbers than planned.
Turnover has shifted towards older and cheaper vehicles than before, meaning that the market is still driven by the lower end,
added Bertalan Halász. Although the general market environment still harbours a number of uncertainties, the momentum at the beginning of the year means that
there is a growing chance that the annual record will be broken for the whole of 2024 - the used car market previously peaked in 2022 with 825,000 cars sold.
In the Hungarian second-hand car market, the most common vehicles changing hands in the first four months of the year were low-medium cars and small cars, with 29% of the former and 21% of the latter. The most popular models in the lower mid-range category are the Opel Astra (5.2%), the Ford Focus (2.9%) and the Volkswagen Golf (2.6%). The Suzuki Swift (4.0%) is the most popular small car, followed by the Opel Corsa (2.0%) and the Volkswagen Polo (1.5%). Among the most common models, the upper mid-size segment is represented by the Volkswagen Passat (2.8%), the Skoda Octavia (2.6%) and the BMW 3 Series (2.2%).
While the 305,800 cars changing hands in the used car market in the first four months of 2024 is 14.4% higher than the 267,200 registered in the same period last year, the number of used cars imported in the same period was 36,100, up 3.4% on the 34,900 registered a year earlier.
Cover photo: Getty Images
