Global automotive market to see modest growth in 2024: market forecast

[Courtesy of Hyundai Motor]

SEOUL -- The sluggish global automotive market will recover from the aftermath of the economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and see modest growth in 2024, data released by South Korea's private automotive research institute showed.

The pandemic that has disrupted the global logistics network since early 2020 to come to an indefinite halt due to countries adopting strict quarantine policies including complete lockdowns, caused the global demand for automotives to exceed supply. The main industries that were affected by the disruption in the distribution networks were the semiconductor, electronics, and parts industries.

The global industries began their normalization processes in 2022 when countries started to open up their borders and resume trade to recover their trade volume to the pre-pandemic level but the economic recession that followed the pandemic, caused by high interest rates and unstable economies hindered consumers from buying new cars, making the global market's growth sluggish.

The Korea Automotive Technology Institute (KATECH) released a forecast report for the global automotive industry in 2024 on November 27 and predicted that the disruption in the global supply chain, induced by the pandemic, will be resolved by the end of 2023. As a result, carmakers could anticipate their sales to continue to increase until the end of the year to reach annual sales of about 90.1 million units in 2023.
 
KATECH also predicted that the global automotive market will see a modest growth of 2.4 percent as an environment that is pulled by global demands will be established. KATECH said the chance of supply disruptions, such as the supply disruption in vehicle semiconductors, occurring would be small in 2024. The automotive institute estimated that some 92.2 million units of cars will be sold globally in 2024.