Amag business picks up again in 2023 after Corona damper
Published: Friday, Jan 26th 2024, 15:40
Updated At: Friday, Jan 26th 2024, 15:40
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Following the loss of momentum during the pandemic, car importer and seller Amag picked up the pace again in 2023. Turnover rose from 4.4 to 5.2 billion Swiss francs last year. That is a new record.
This means that the Group has also exceeded the pre-corona year 2019, when Amag achieved sales of 4.7 billion Swiss francs. On the one hand, the acquisition of energy service provider Helion contributed to the 18.2 percent increase in turnover with a three-digit million figure, said Amag CEO Helmut Ruhl in an interview with the news agency AWP on Friday on the fringes of the annual media conference.
On the other hand, in 2023 the Swiss car market ended the downturn that had persisted since the outbreak of coronavirus. The number of newly registered passenger cars rose by 11.6% year-on-year to 252,214.
This means that the Swiss car market is still well below a normal car year, in which around 300,000 vehicles are sold, the report continued. But it is still the highest figure since the start of the pandemic.
Amag holds up slightly better than the overall market
The Amag brands performed better than the market as a whole. Sales of VW, Skoda, Audi, Seat and Cupra brand cars climbed by 14.4 percent to 81,781, a good 10,000 vehicles more than a year ago.
As a result, Amag's market share for passenger cars rose slightly by 0.8 points to 32.4 percent. Together with commercial vehicles, Amag sold 90,005 vehicles last year.
The brand with the strongest growth was Skoda, which sold almost 22 percent more cars. Sales of Audi, Seat/Cupra and VW also climbed by around 12 percent each. The main brand Volkswagen is thus the market leader in Switzerland for the 24th time, with Skoda in third place.
Increase of almost 50 percent for electric cars
The strong upswing in electric cars continued. Amag sold a total of 18,542 electric cars, an increase of almost 50 percent compared to the previous year. The car importer reported that the market share of electric cars had reached over 35 percent.
Amag is also benefiting from the fact that e-cars are more expensive on average than cars with combustion engines. This has also driven sales, said Group CEO Ruhl.
Amag wants to step on the gas when it comes to electric vehicles. "We have set ourselves the goal of generating the electricity consumed by our electric cars on the roofs through the energy service provider Helion," said the Group CEO.
Last year, Amag subsidiary Helion completed over 1,400 photovoltaic projects with an energy output of more than 70 GWh. The solar systems produced electricity for almost 33,000 electric cars, explained Ruhl: "That's almost twice as much as the electric cars we sold last year."
However, the market has clouded over. Even Switzerland will not be able to completely escape the Europe-wide decline in e-car sales, said Ruhl. Competition has become tougher.
Target of 400,000 e-cars
Nevertheless, Amag is sticking to its goal of having over 400,000 pure e-cars from its brands on the market by 2030. "According to our planning, this is realistic," said Ruhl.
However, one prerequisite for this is that apartment residents have the opportunity to charge their cars in the garage. "Tenants and condominium owners should have the right to install the charging infrastructure themselves if they pay for it themselves. That would be the easiest way," said Ruhl at the media conference. More electricity is also needed.
Slightly higher sales expected
For the current year 2024, Ruhl expects a further moderate upturn in the Swiss car market. He expects around 260,000 new registrations. It will be another two to three years before the level of a normal car year with around 300,000 new cars sold is reached again, said Ruhl.
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