MEXICO tomobile Distributors Association and the Mexico Automotive Industry Association. General Motors is in second place, with a 19% share, representing 309,000 units sold. Last December was GM Mexico’s best month in its history. “For the second consecutive year, the Chevrolet Aveo and Chevrolet Spark in-ished in the top-ive leet vehicles sold in Mexico,” said Miguel Gonzalez, director of GM Mexico leet department, a position he assumed July 2016, succeeding Gerar-do Fernandez who was promoted to Chev-rolet sales director. Volkswagen is the third best-selling brand in Mexico with a 15% share, repre-senting 247,000 units sold. Toyota was the OEM with the largest increases in 2016 with a 24% increase in sales over 2015 to about 105,000 cars and light trucks. Toyota is fourth best-selling brand in Mexico with a 6.5% share of the local market. As with most automotive markets around the world, Mexican auto sales are being stimulated by the growing retail demand for compact and mid-size SUVs. “he highest growth has been seen in low-end segments such as small and medi-um SUVs, small and medium pickups, and small and compact cars,” said Gonzalez. Other factors stimulating new-vehicle sales in Mexico has been the decrease of used-vehicle imports from the U.S., as well as a higher credit availability in the domes-tic market for auto loans. Exports represent 69.1% of GM Mexi-co’s total production, with the majority of them earmarked for sale in the U.S. Cana-da is the second largest automotive export destination for GM Mexico, primarily ex-porting Mexico-assembled Silverado, Si-erra, and Trax models to Canadian deal-ers. “he third most important market for GM Mexico is Argentina, but we only ex-port Trax to them,” said Gonzalez. One headwind on the horizon is the risk of higher interest rates in the Mexi-can economy a s inlation is expected to run above government forecasts in 2017, according to Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argen-taria SA, Grupo Financiero Banorte SAB, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. One reason for inlation concerns has been triggered by the government’s decision to raise the price of gasoline by an average of 20% in January 2017. SOURCE: COURTESY OF GM Mexico Economic Monitor CURRENCY: • Mexican peso fell 24.8% in 12 months and 46% in 24 months CENTRAL BANK: • Key interest rate increase 230 basis points from 3.27% to 5.57% GASOLINE PRICE: • 20% increase in January Mexico’s Economic Outlook (YoY) Monthly GDP 5.0 3.0 Y0Y growth Industrial Sector Services Sector 1.0 -1.0 -3.0 Jan-14 May-14 Sep-14 Jan-15 May-15 Sep-15 Jan-16 May-16 Sep-16 Interest Rate 10.0% 8.0% 6.0% Mexico USA Date Current 2016 4.0% 2.0% 0.0% Economic Activity GDP CPI Inlation Exports Imports Industrial Production Q3-16 Oct-16 Oct-16 Oct-16 Sep-16 2.0% 2.9% 1.3% 1.7% 0.3% 2.3% 2.7% -3.8% -3.1% 0.4% 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 * Automotive Sector represents more than 3% of GPD. The Mexican economy continues to grow, fueled by an eco-nomic expansion in the agricultural sector and services in-dustry. Additionally, the weakness of the peso, along with the ongoing improvement in global demand, positive-ly affected Mexico’s merchandise exports in the irst two months of 2017. Q2 2017 I AUTOMOTIVE FLEET 9
Automotive Fleet May 2017: Page 9
