July's figures for new auto sales were just released by the Chilean car honchos ANAC, so it's a good moment to catch up on what's been happening to that sector in the country. In places where consumer stimuli on auto sales hasn't been used to any great extent (Brazil has been running a successful campaign on that score all year, way before 'cash for clunkers' was invented by Obama&Co), new auto sales are a good way to get a thumbrule idea of the way the consumer is acting in any given country. In the case of Chile, there's good news and bad. First the good, and new auto sales have been picking up as the year progresses.
ANAC originally put its estimates for 2009 at 130,000 units, but they've bumped that up to 140,000 on recent numbers (Chile's sales tend to increase month after month during the year, peaking in November)But the bad news is the longer view. The 140,000 units forecast for 2009 sit like this compared to previous years.
And that's quite a drop, dudettes and dudes. Chile isn't rotating its new cars this year, with plenty of consumers driving their present car another few thousand miles instead of trading in. It's called a recession, something that Chile hasn't denied suffering for the last year. Evidence above.