The 10 largest exporters of automotive products in the world in 2020

The European Union, Japan, the United States, Mexico and China topped the ranking of the 10 largest exporters of automotive products in the world in 2020, according to data from the World Trade Organization (WTO).

While the European Union’s exports of automotive products totaled 609,000 million dollars, its external sales in that same extra-bloc category were for 234,000 million.

Then they continued in the ranking: Japan (125,000 million dollars), the United States (110,000 million), Mexico (104,000 million) and China (58,000 million).

Automotive products

In particular, the Japanese company Toyota estimates that annual vehicle sales worldwide totaled approximately 80 million units in 2020.

Auto sales are affected by a number of factors including:

• Social, political and economic conditions.
• Introduction of new vehicles and technologies.
• Costs incurred by customers to buy and operate automobiles.

These factors can cause consumer demand to vary substantially from year to year in different geographic markets and individual car categories.

In fiscal 2021, except for China, which contained the Covid-19 outbreak at an early stage, the world economy experienced a year-on-year contraction in both developed and emerging countries due to the global spread of Covid-19.

Also the orders to stay at home and the voluntary efforts to control the outbreak led to a difficult situation in which many countries of the world were pushed into an unprecedented crisis that required public spending and the launch of substantial monetary easing measures.

The United States experienced a recovery thanks to significant stimulus measures and an easing monetary policy.

In Europe, the resurgence of new cases and repeated blockades caused economic stagnation.

Asia

For its part, in Japan, amid an economic slowdown caused by the increase in consumption tax in October 2019, the economy experienced a sharp slowdown due to the state of emergency issued and voluntary stay-at-home efforts in relation to the Covid-19 outbreak; the resurgence of new cases also delayed economic recovery.

Also according to Toyota, China achieved early containment of the spread of Covid-19 and enjoyed a rapid recovery from mid-2020 driven in part by pent-up demand related to Covid-19 and government action.

However, emerging countries in Asia and other regions also experienced an economic slowdown due to low demand from abroad and travel restrictions.

As a result, the automotive industry was affected by the above factors and experienced a year-on-year contraction for the third consecutive year, resulting in a greater contraction of the market than during the financial crisis of 2008.

Both developed and emerging countries generally posted year-on-year contractions, including China, which achieved an early economic recovery, posted a year-on-year contraction for the third year in a row.

Developed markets, where governments have sufficient financial capacity, have generally recovered more quickly than emerging markets, and the speed of recovery has varied from country to country as it is affected by the prevalence and severity of infections .