February auto sales climb 63% y-o-y as market awaits true war impact in March

Auto sales jumped 63.3% y-o-y in February to 17.3k units, with total market sales climbing 22.5% m-o-m, according to figures from the Automotive Marketing Information Council (Amic) seen by EnterpriseAM. The February figures reflect none of the impact from the US-Israel war on Iran, which kicked off at month’s end.

The breakdown: Passenger car sales climbed 22.9% m-o-m to 13.4k units, while bus sales rose 56.3% m-o-m to 1.4k units. Truck sales saw a more measured 7.5% m-o-m increase to 2.4k units. On a y-o-y basis, the bus segment more than doubled (up 128.6%), while passenger cars climbed 64.4% and truck sales rose 35.9%.

Behind the surge: Promos offered in connection with the Auto Mobility exhibition earlier February helped stimulate market demand, Amic board member Abdelkader Talaat tells EnterpriseAM. February sales are in line with the normal cyclicality of the industry, Osama Aboul Magd, head of the Egyptian Automotive Dealers Association, adds.

The big question: What will March figures tell us about the impact of the war in the Gulf. Aboul Magd notes that Egyptian consumers have a recurring pattern of buying hard assets like cars and gold during times of crisis to hedge against currency fluctuations. The shift is already visible in early licensing data — which is often a more accurate real-time indicator than Amic’s distributor reports — suggesting that March sales leaped more than 25% compared to January and February, Talaat tells us.

IN CONTEXT- The 63% growth in sales in February reflects the impact of a low base — early 2025 was a notoriously difficult period for the sector thanks to import restrictions as the market adjusted to the impact of the early 2024 float of the EGP, Aboul Magd argues.

Sales of completely built-up imports surged nearly 80% in February, handily outpacing the 30% growth in sales of locally assembled vehicles.