Decreasing Used Car Imports

A total of 30,971 used cars were imported into the country in the first quarter, down 18% from the same period last year. In March, the decrease was 11%.

Almost a third of imported used cars are made up of three brands: Volkswagen 10.6%, Opel 10% and Ford 9.7%.

While nearly 40,000 used cars flowed into the country each quarter before the outbreak of the pandemic, the average quarterly traffic has since fallen by about 20%. The biggest decline occurred immediately after the outbreak, at a time of severe closures, when the number of 2020 in the second quarter fell to around 27,000. The following freer summer pulled back the volume to almost 34,000 cars. Since the second wave of the epidemic, the volume of quarterly imports is 31-32 thousand cars.

Although according to the data of the February survey by JóAutók.hu [GoodCars], almost two thirds of market participants expect that the operation of the car market may return to the old numbers by summer at the latest, it seems almost certain that dealers can say goodbye to the previous quarterly levels of 40,000.