Car sales grow by 3.3% in the first quarter

Despite the difficult economic environment resulting from the US government's trade tensions with the rest of the world, distributors of brand new cars based in Mexico sold 127,352 vehicles in March, which meant a modest gain of 1.3% over the same month last year.

Although the increase is marginal, the accumulated sales figure for the first quarter shows more significant growth, of 3.3%, with a total of 365,017 light vehicles. This is the second best result on record, only behind the 378,885 units sold in the same period of 2017.

Guillermo Rosales, president of the Mexican Association of Automotive Distributors (AMDA), said that the results exceeded the organization's estimates. However, he clarified that the long-term outlook remains with the likelihood that the Mexican economy will end 2025 in a phase of stagnation or a slight recession.

This leads to the AMDA's expectation regarding vehicle sales for the year being a fall of around 1% compared to the end of 2024, the executive estimated.

Nissan, with a market share of almost 18%, remains the leading car manufacturer in terms of sales volume. The Japanese company ended the quarter with a 5.7% increase in units sold.

General Motors, second in the list with a 13.5% share, ended the three-month period with a marginal increase in sales of 0.4%, while Volkswagen, third with an 11.6% share, reported a quarterly increase of 3.6%.