Canadian motor vehicle parts shipments in the first half of 2023 exceeded pre-pandemic figures by 12.5% or more than $2 billion dollars, according to Desrosiers Automotive Consultants.
While the motor vehicle assembly industry remains behind the first half 2019 figure, it is only behind by 4.3%, Desrosiers adds.
“Of course, Canada has seen dramatic inflation in that period, but manufacturing for these industries remains on the right track,” Desrosiers comments in a release.
The Canadian motor vehicle assembly industry and the automotive parts industry were both impacted significantly by the pandemic and the semi-conductor shortages that followed. Shipments between the first halves of 2019 and 2020 fell 44.0% and 34.4% respectively for these industries.
Outside of these two key industries, metalworking machinery manufacturing has seen an increase of 33.7% compared to the first half of 2019 with the motor vehicle body and trailer manufacturing industry seeing shipments grow 49.4%. Comparing the first half of last year to this year, assembly increased 34.4%, parts increased 22.8%, metalworking machinery increased 10.4%, and body and trailer increased 34.1%.
“Auto-related shipments took more than their fair share of hits in recent years” commented Andrew King, Managing Partner at DAC. “However, the first half of 2023 brought with it significant growth indicating a strengthening automotive space.”
The industry is entering a period of transformational structural change as it moves to BEV focused assembly, but in the short term at least performance has been strong.
