unitcell industry profile

Contract-based automotive trade - positions, perspectives, approaches to action

Berlin, August 2015

Intention of this industry profile

Europe's largest automotive market, with a total inventory of over 51 million vehicles and around 3 million new passenger car registrations annually, is an indispensable foundation for vehicle sales by the major German automakers. Consequently, the automotive retail sector in Germany plays a key role. With around 38,500 businesses, more than 450,000 employees and annual sales of 147.8 billion euros in 2014, the sector continues to be of great importance to the German economy.

A large number of endangered automotive dealers are currently undergoing acute restructuring efforts in terms of performance and finances, which are depriving management of the freedom to deal with mandatory operational issues and the strategic further development of the company.

The current upheavals in aftersales will certainly represent the greatest challenge for dealerships in the coming years: Here, it can be observed that more and more "heavyweights" in the industry are becoming active in online parts trading and in workshop portals, thus influencing local markets.

The automotive trade is one of unitcell's industry focal points. The team of unitcell Management Consulting has been supporting entrepreneurs from the contract-based automotive trade for a long time within the scope of multi-layered, mostly implementation-oriented projects in coping with current and future market and internal challenges.

We would be pleased if our downloadable excerpts of our Automotive Trade Industry Profile and the statements contained therein are of use in evaluating the situation of one's own position and prospects, and would like to invite interested parties to participate in the discussion.

Automotive trade companies can request the full version of the study from unitcell free of charge.