Asia Autos: ‘Zero-Covid’ Policy Dragging Regional Vehicle Sales Into A Contraction For 2022

Key View

• While markets in South East Asia (SEA) will perform well in 2022, some of the region’s biggest markets such as Mainland China, Japan and South Korea are facing rising headwinds which will drag down growth in the Asia region. Vehicle sales in the Asia region will be held back primarily by the limited supply of new vehicles (due to the global chip shortage).
• In 2022, we believe that Mainland China’s ‘Zero-Covid’ policy will drag the Asia region’s vehicle sales back into a contraction. This is due to the weakened vehicle sales outlook in Mainland China, as well as the supply chain impact, which further limits the availability of new vehicles. We forecast that total vehicle sales in Asia will contract by 2.5% y-o-y in 2022 to reach an annual sales volume of 40mn units.
• We highlight that while we now believe that the semiconductor shortage in Autos will start to show some improvement from mid-2023, we expect that the automotive sector will likely be dealing with a chip shortage for the foreseeable future which means sales will face supply constraints well into 2023.

While markets in South East Asia (SEA) will perform well in 2022, some of the region’s biggest markets such as Mainland China, Japan and South Korea are facing rising headwinds which will drag down growth in the Asia region. Vehicle sales in the Asia region will be held back primarily by the limited supply of new vehicles (due to the global chip shortage). This risk is further amplified by Mainland China’s ‘Zero Covid’ policy.