Auto sales rebound after reaching multi-year low: Auto sales in April rose 35.1% m-o-m to reach 5.7k vehicles, according to figures from the Automotive Marketing Information Council (AMIC) seen by Enterprise. The uptick in sales comes following March’s 43% m-o-m drop in sales to 4.2k vehicles — the lowest number of auto sales we’ve seen since we started keeping track of auto sales in the country in January 2019.

The recovery was driven by an uptick in passenger car sales, which rose 65.5% m-o-m to 4.6k vehicles in April. Meanwhile, bus and truck sales were both down compared to the previous month — bus sales saw a 37% m-o-m decrease to 329 units, while truck sales were down 14.2% m-o-m to record 789 units.

Remember: Auto sales have been relatively volatile — but overall on the decline — for the last few years. Late 2023, auto sales were falling on the back of FX shortages limiting supply in the market and giving distributors leverage to hike prices as they pleased. But over the past few months demand has been fluctuating and in March sales fell in response to the float of the EGP, which had customers adopt a wait-and-see approach in hopes of further price reductions down the line.

On a yearly basis: Auto sales were up 11% from April 2023, driven by an 18.4% y-o-y increase in passenger car sales. Bus sales fell by 25.1% y-o-y while truck sales dipped by 4.4% compared to this time last year.

Always read the small print: AMIC figures reflect data contributed by member distributors, who include most, but not all, industry participants.

LOCAL LADA PRODUCTION RESUMING?

GV Investments to bring back made-in-Egypt Ladas: Home-grown investment group GV Investments will be producing some 50-70k Lada cars annually in its still-under-construction Lada assembly and production Tarboul plant starting next year, Trade Minister Ahmed Samir told Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti, calling it “one of the largest car assembly plants in Egypt.”

Remember: GV Investments’ automotive arm GV auto inkedan exclusive partnership with Lada Egypt in April, which gave GV Auto the rights to market and distribute Lada cars including five models that are yet to hit the Egyptian market.

We said goodbye to locally-assembled Lada cars in 2022: Al Amal Auto, the local agent of Lada and BYD vehicles suspended the assembly of the Lada Granta in August 2022 on the back of Western sanctions on Russia. Last year, Al Amal and Lada’s manufacturer, Russian carmaker AvtoVAZ, were looking to resume assembly of Lada cars in early 2024.

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