Automotive component exports up 21.8% by May to €5B
Spain, with sales of €1.422 billion, remains the main customer of components manufactured in Portugal, followed by Germany, with €1.108 billion.
Exports of automotive components registered a year-on-year growth of 21.8% until May this year, to €5 billion, revealed AFIA – the association of manufacturers for the automotive industry on Tuesday.
In monthly terms, exports of automotive components exceeded 1 billion euros in May this year, corresponding to an increase of 21.9% over the same month of the previous year, AFIA said in a statement.
This double-digit growth represents an increase for the thirteenth consecutive month, also denoting a higher growth rate than that of Portuguese exports of goods, which fell 6.9% in the same month, the business association points out.
In the first five months of this year, sales outside Portugal grew by 21.8% year-on-year, with 70% of Portuguese exports of automotive components going first to Spain, followed by Germany, France, Slovakia and the United States.
Spain, with sales of €1.422 billion, remains the main customer of components manufactured in Portugal, followed by Germany, with €1.108 billion.
In third place is France, with €560 million, while fourth place belongs to Slovakia, with €224 million, and the top five is rounded off by the United States, with €189 million.
In addition, exports to four of these five countries were up on the previous year, with sales to Spain increasing by 22.6 per cent year-on-year.
Domestic component sales to France, Portugal’s third largest customer, grew by 23% and, finally, Slovakia recorded a year-on-year increase in imports of Portuguese automotive components of 26.5%.
On the other hand, the United States continued to register a year-on-year drop, now of 21%, in imports of automotive components from Portugal, remaining the fifth client country.
It is also mentioned that exports to countries such as Spain and Germany are growing more than production, thus gaining market share in these destination countries.
In this sense and until May this year, production in Spain increased by 19.9% while exports rose 22.6%.
In Germany, production grew by 27.1%, against a 28.6% increase in exports.
“Without major changes in the national and international panorama regarding the increase in inflation, transport, energy and raw material costs, which continue to accentuate uncertainty in this and other sectors, it is important to remember that the automotive components industry maintains its consistency and resilience, continuing to create ways to remain competitive and continue to gain market share from its counterparts”, reads the note released by AFIA.
