The German luxury carmaker BMW was the most popular car brand in Belgium last year, with 38,962 new passenger car registrations of these vehicles.
This accounts for a market share of 10.17% in 2021. The second place went to Volkswagen (34,350 registrations), followed by Peugeot (28,479), Audi (28,016) and Mercedes (27,525), according to figures from the sector federation Febiac.
Figures from Febiac and Federal Public Service Mobility and Transport also showed that total new car registrations was at its lowest in 2021 since 1995.
A tough year for vehicle sales
As a whole, the market fell by 11.21% to 383,123 registrations; in December alone, new passenger car registrations were down 32.2% compared to December 2020.
This is mainly down to the global shortage of semi-conductors – a vital component for electronics and any item that has a microchip somewhere. This is delaying vehicle deliveries and therefore registrations, despite the fact that importers are receiving as many orders as in previous years, according to Febiac.
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BMW was one of the few brands that managed to register more new passenger cars in Belgium last year than in 2020, alongside Kia (+4.47%), Mini (+1.22%), Mazda (+5.10%) and Porsche (+5.83%). The most noticeable growth was recorded by Tesla, which saw its new car registrations rise by almost 10%.
The extended market for motorised two-wheelers, which includes motorbikes, scooters, tricycles and light quadricycles, ended the year 2021 with a total of 25,422 registrations.
"This is a slight decrease for this market compared to 2020. Nevertheless, this result remains higher than that of the three years prior to Covid-19 and the average results for powered two-wheelers since 2010," Febiac noted in a press release.
