The employers’ associations of the used vehicle sector Ganvam (distributors) and Faconauto (dealers) have made public the balance of the second-hand car market in 2023. The figures confirm once again the preference of Spaniards for used vehicles, since that the 1,940,488 operations registered – 2.6% more than in 2022 – represent double those carried out by new cars (949,359).
Thus, for every car that was registered for the first time in Spain in 2023, another two were sold from the second-hand market. A trend that has been maintained for years and that reveals the economic difficulties that accessing a new vehicle entails for many citizens.
The photo obtained with the data released by Ganvam and Faconauto reflects a second-hand market dominated by old and diesel vehicles. Cars over 15 years old represent 40.3% of the operations registered in 2023 and diesel cars account for more than half (55.3%), so the average age of used cars sold in Spain last year is It stood at 11.1 years, in line with 2022.
There is no doubt that cars with internal combustion engines are the main protagonists of the used market. After diesel cars, gasoline passenger cars (37.2%) are the most in demand. On the other hand, electrified vehicles still have a nominal weight in the used market.
In this way, although they closed the year with a growth of 6.6% in their sales, pure electric vehicles represented 0.6% of the total. Plug-in hybrids, with an increase of 24.8% at the end of the year, accounted for 0.9% of the total in 2023.
Although 4 out of every 10 second-hand cars sold last year are more than 15 years old, the 5.5% growth in operations with vehicles from 0 to 5 years old stands out. One in every 4 passenger cars sold (25.8%) corresponds to this age group. Specifically, these young models registered a total of 500,370 units.
According to the employers’ associations Ganvam and Faconauto, this increase in sales of used cars up to five years old has to do with the recovery of stock, once the microchip crisis has been overcome. This has allowed renting and car rental companies to renew their fleets and put on the market a range of models that are highly in demand for their quality-price ratio.
Operations with used passenger cars from rental contracts that have already been completed increased by 29.3% at the end of the year. For their part, used sales from rental companies ended the year with an increase of 23.3%.
The range of cars between 10 and 15 years old experienced a decrease in sales of 16.5% compared to fiscal year 2022, reaching a total of 348,496 examples.
Regarding sales by autonomous community, Andalusia (354,331 units) and Madrid (295,276) are the Spanish regions where the most used vehicle operations were registered. However, it stands out that while in the Andalusian community the variation in sales compared to 2022 was only 0.4%, in Madrid it rose to 8.1%.
Despite this, it is in Castilla-La Mancha (103,374) where the variation in sales was greatest (11.8%). In general, the majority of communities present very similar or slightly higher figures in relation to the 2022 financial year.
