The firm said that 2015 was characterized as a good year in the mature car markets, though it was largely offset by a very poor year for many of the world’s emerging markets. The net result is estimated to be a sub-par 1.5 percent growth in global auto sales – the slowest pace of growth since 2010.  

However, IHS Automotive said the outlook for 2016 is likely to be defined by smaller gains, but also less pain than 2015.

Incremental volume growth in the US and Europe is forecast to be solid but less spectacular, while on the other side of the balance sheet, further downside from Russia, South America and some big ASEAN car markets will be less of a drag on global volumes as their impact lessens, having already suffered severe market contractions. This, combined with the new autos targeted stimulus in China, is likely to provide a mild uptick in global sales growth of 2.7%, IHS Automotive forecasts.  

The 2016 global forecast from IHS calls for sales of 89.8 million units – just shy of the possibility of a global automotive light vehicle market reaching 90 million units.