Industrial Concentration of the Brazilian Automobile Market and Positioning in the World Market

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the evolution and global positioning of the Brazilian automotive industry's market concentration from 2012 to 2018, revealing a shift from oligopoly to a more competitive, quasi-devolved market structure.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of Brazilian automotive market concentration using multiple indices and compares its global position through cluster analysis.

Findings

Brazil's automotive market is similar to US and South Korea in concentration profile.

The industry shifted from oligopoly to moderate concentration between 1998 and 2018.

Brazil is positioned among countries with similar market structures in the global automotive landscape.

Abstract

This paper surveys the evolution of industrial concentration of the Brazilian automotive market as well as its positioning in the worldmarket. Data available by OICA (International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers) were used to better understand the characteristics of the Brazilian market on the world stage. A cluster analysis algorithm (by the k-means technique) ranks Brazil with a concentration profile in a group of countries like US and South Korea, in contrast to countries such as Germany, Canada and Japan, or even France and Italy. It is rather usual to characterize the market structure through industrial concentration indices: we revisit CR ratios (concentration ratios), HHI (Herfindahl-Hirschman index), B (Rosenbluth index), and CCI (Horvath comprehensive concentration index). Data of Anfavea-Brazil (Associacao Nacional dos Fabricantes de Veiculos Automotores) were used to estimate these indices in the period 2012-2018 for the national automobile industry. The values obtained indicate that by 1998 the automotive sector was behaving as an oligopoly-differentiated. However, the values of more recent periods (particularly CR4) strongly indicate that the sector is currently moderately concentrated and is changing for a quasi-devolved market.