The United Arab Emirates houses an increasingly large and profitable vehicle market. New car registrations are growing every year and more people have access to vehicles for their personal and business needs. According to bestsellingcarsblog.com, the number of new vehicle registrations jumped by 22% year over year between July 2012 and July 2013.
The most popular new cars in the UAE appear to be SUVs and small, family cars. The single best seller was the Toyota Prado (an SUV), with 10,673 sales by the middle of the year alone. Land Cruisers were also very popular. Smaller cars have also been selling incredibly well, with Toyota Camrys and Mitsubishi lancers holding high positions on the sales list. The sportier Toyota Corolla has been rapidly gaining popularity was on track to outpace all of the other cars and even the best-selling Prado. Toyota appears to be the brand of choice among the people of the UAE, with several different models on the top-ten list. Since so many of the new cars being sold are expensive SUVs and luxury brands, this may indicate that new cars are being bought more frequently by the wealthy and those who are looking to own a car more as a status symbol than for practical reasons.
Interestingly, the trends are a little different in the UAE’s used vehicle market. Toyota vehicles are still incredibly popular, but according to emirates247.com, the single most popular vehicle for resale in the UAE is a Nissan. The Nissan Altima took the top position for used car sales, and was closely followed by the Honda Civic and the Toyota Camry. Small cars do seem to be the vehicles of choice on the used market, perhaps implying that families with smaller budgets may be looking for more reasonable vehicles, with better fuel economy.
The used vehicle market also appears to be growing rapidly in the UAE. A new business has appeared (SellAnyCar.com) that is offering to buy any used car within 30 miles quickly and with little hassle. The implications for this service are two-fold. It means that now, families will be able to quickly and easily sell their used vehicles, even when they might not have been able to find a market before or might not have been aware of their vehicle’s value, so they will be more inclined to sell. It also means that these cars will be available for resale by this large distributor and will probably be easier to find for the people who are looking to buy a used vehicle.
The market for both new and used vehicles in the UAE appears to be growing rapidly. The growth of new, especially SUV, sales and the emergence of a stable and increasingly friendly used market would seem to imply that there are many opportunities for profit and investment concerning vehicle sales in the UAE
