The 20 biggest car markets in the world: Russia on the up!

Red Square in Moscow, Russia. Picture by Andras Pfaff 

* See the Top 20 biggest car markets in the world by clicking on the title! *

To give a bit of perspective to all the models data I publish here, I thought I would make a Top 20 biggest car markets ranking for 2011, with some figures still estimates. China leads with nearly 19 million sales but grows slower than the US this year at +5%. Japan falls by 14% but stays #3 ahead of Brazil (+3%) and Germany (+9%).

Exceptional performance of Russia, up 39% to 2.65 million units and going from #10 overall and #5 in Europe in 2010 to #6 and #2 behind just Germany this year! India also fares well at +12% and 2.3 million and stays #7. France, UK and Italy are all down. Notice also Indonesia (+17%), Turkey (+14%) and Argentina (+29%) all reaching their highest level ever, while Spain is down 3 spots to #19 (-18%).

I have also introduced the New Cars Per Thousand (NCPT) ratio which is the number of new cars purchased in 2011 per thousand inhabitants. Belgium leads at this little game with 53, followed by Canada (46), Australia (44) and the USA (41). Interestingly, Russia (19), Iran (19), Brazil (18) and Spain (18) are now all at the same level, while China is at 14 and India at 2.

Full Year 2011 Top 20 Ranking Table below.