Drop in Car Sales

The drop in sales has caused dealers to use new marketing strategies such as free maintenance.

The sale of new vehicles is still marked by a double-digit deceleration, despite the promotions of the agencies and the constant fairs that take place in the country.

In the first half of this year, 25,522 new vehicles were sold nationwide, according to the Comptroller General of the Republic .

The figure reflects a fall of 12.9% when making a comparison with the same period of 2017, when 29,287 new cars were sold.

The picture is even bleaker compared to the numbers of 2016. In the first half of that year 33 thousand 163 vehicles zero kilometers went out to the street.

When analyzing the data by type of automobiles, only three items had a positive performance during the first semester of 2018. In the sale of buses a 10.6% increase was registered; what they call "other cars" reflected a positive variation of 2.9%, while the sale of luxury vehicles increased by 2.9%. However, in absolute terms, these segments are not the most representative of the market.

The vehicles that registered a greater fall in their commercialization were the regular automobiles (20.7%); followed by minivans (17.7%); the trucks (15.1%); the panels (13.49%); light all-terrain vehicles known as SUVs (9.37%) and picop (6.5%).

This decrease in sales has caused vehicle agencies to use various strategies to attract a new generation of buyers.

They offer deals that seek to quickly engage customers such as the sale of vehicles at introductory prices (the lowest in the market), a year of free maintenance or to start paying for the vehicule 3 months after purchase.

The banks are offering loans that can be paid up to seven years.

According to reports from the Superintendency of Banks, inl April 2018 the banks had balances for $1,741 million dollars in loans for automobiles.