(News Bulletin 247) – The year 2023 was a good year for the French automobile market. The shares of French car manufacturers start the year 2024 on the floor on the Paris Stock Exchange.

After a year 2022 disrupted by global delivery difficulties and shortages of electronic chips, the French automobile market has regained color in 2023.

Registrations increased by 16.07% over the past year. There are therefore 1,774,729 new passenger cars put into circulation in 2023, according to figures published Monday by the Automobile Platform (PFA), an entity representing the sector in France.

The Automotive Platform explains this improvement in the market by a catching-up effect in vehicle deliveries, after two years of semiconductor shortages. “We have managed to sell the vehicles ordered by customers, the crucial problem of the lack of electronic components is disappearing,” François Roudier, communications manager for the PFA, told AFP.

The growing interest of French consumers in electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles is not unrelated to this unprecedented progression in 10 years of the French automobile market. Sales of all-electric vehicles soared by 47% year-on-year while those of plug-in hybrids increased by 34%.

A small downside, however, is that this record growth in registrations in France over the past 10 years remains insufficient to return to the two million vehicles registered, i.e. the levels observed before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stellantis in the lead, Renault just behind

In detail, it is the Stellantis group which is in the lead. The group bringing together the Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Opel and Jeep brands is still the French market leader, with 27.4% market share despite a slight increase of 1.8% in registrations over one year.

Its big rival, Renault represents 24.6% of the French private car market. The number of car registrations from the diamond group jumped by 18.3% in 2023.

Third on the podium, Volkswagen, saw its registrations increase by 25.2%. The leading foreign group on the French market saw its market share increase slightly to 13.9% over one year.

On the stock market, stocks in the automotive sector are starting the year 2024 on the ground. Renault gained 1.75%, Stellantis increased by 1.5%. Automotive equipment manufacturers are not left out: Valeo shows one of the strongest increases in the Paris market (+3.8%), behind Orpea (+4.7%) and Sartorius Stedim (+4%), while Forvia appreciates by 2.65%.

Moreover, Bank of America recently unveiled its selection of stocks in the automotive sector to play for the year 2024. The establishment recommends five stocks including Stellantis and Forvia.

For the group resulting from the merger between PSA and Fiat Chrysler, Bank of America judges that the company has levers to offset the negative impacts due to a lower pricing environment and a less favorable sales mix.

As for equipment manufacturers, Bank of America prefers Forvia, the new name of the French Faurecia since it bought the German Hella. The establishment expects the company to benefit from extracting cost synergies from the Hella tie-up and appreciates the company’s exposure to winning electric players, such as Tesla and China’s BYD.