Saudi Arabia Full Year 2018: Toyota Camry repeats at #1, market down 23.4% despite women now able to drive

The Toyota Camry is #1 in Saudi Arabia again.

Consult 30 years of Saudi Arabia Historical Data here.

The big event of the year in Saudi Arabia was women being allowed to drive from June 24 onwards. Unfortunately, as I predicted in an interview with the BBC.co.uk, this hasn’t had a positive effect on new car sales in the country just yet, with deliveries down another painful -23.4% in 2018 to just 411.223 units. Depressingly, this is the third consecutive 20%+ fall in Saudi Arabia after steep declines in both 2016 (-21.4%) and 2017 (-22.3%), which means the market has now lost 53.2% since its peak of 879.704 units in 2015. Brand leader Toyota (-23.3%) almost perfectly matches the market to keep its share unchanged at 31.7% but Hyundai (-29.8%) sees its footprint thaw from 20.3% to 18.6%. Nissan (-24.2%) remains in third place at 6.6% but Mazda (+20.2%) stuns with a double-digit gains lifting it from #9 last year to #4 and 5.9%. The only other Top 10 carmaker to record a positive result is Mitsubishi up a smashing 105.7% to #10. Elsewhere, Chevrolet (-10.6%), Honda (-17.3%) and Isuzu (-20.3%) improve their share but Kia (-39.9%) and Ford (-24.5%) aren’t that lucky. Further down, Chinese MG (+764.1%) is the hero of the year, up 15 spots to #13, with Ram (+134.9%), Maserati (+49.7%), McLaren (+33.3%), Jaguar (+28%) and Jeep (+8.7%) also managing a gain while Volvo returns at #29.

The new CX-9 helps Mazda up 20.2% this year in Saudi Arabia.

The arrival of women on the Saudi market has unfortunately been unable to slow down the market’s freefall in 2018.

Over in the models ranking, the Toyota Camry (-23.2%) follows the market to repeat at #1 with 6.5% share, but the Toyota Hilux (-19.6%) is nudging closer less than 1.200 units below vs. 3.000 last year. The Hyundai Accent (-25.7%) overtakes the Sonata (-28.9%) for third place, with the Hyundai Elantra (-26.6%) and Toyota Corolla (-27.8%) camping on their positions below. The Isuzu D-Max (+13.5%) is up 5 spots to break back into the Top 10 at #8, with the Mazda CX-9 (+170%) up 31 to #14, the Toyota Land Cruiser Pickup (+7.4%) up 5 to #17, the Chevrolet Spark (+49.6%) up 14 to #19 and the Mitsubishi Attrage (up 100-fold) up 177 to #22 for its first full year of sales since returning in market. The MG 360 (+491.3%), Honda Civic (+90.5%), Nissan X-Trail (+55.4%), Mitsubishi Pajero (+38.3% and  L200 (+33.9%) also shine in the Top 50. The Mazda CX-5 (#46) is the most popular 2018 (re)launch ahead of the Toyota Rush (#60), MG RX5 (#71), Hyundai Kona (#91) and Geely Emgrand GS (#93).

2005-2018 All-Makes and All-Models monthly data and 1990-2018 All-Makes and All-Models annual data available. Contact us here for more details

Previous post: Saudi Arabia January-October 2018: Freefalls continues (-24%) despite women now driving

Previous year: Saudi Arabia Full Year 2017: Toyota Camry leads for the first time this decade

Two years ago: Saudi Arabia Full Year 2016: First ever crown for Hyundai Accent

Full Year 2018 Top 40 All-brands and Top 60 models vs. Full Year 2017 figures below.