Solera, the organisation behind Autodata, has issued some interesting information on the impact of COVID-19 on the Automotive Aftermarket.

The report highlights how the industry felt the effects of many people switching to working from home, but has since seen a trend of those now returning to offices, opting for personal vehicle use to support their commutes versus public transportation. This is a positive sign for the automotive aftermarket, after the initial declines seen in work volumes for repair and bodyshops due to far fewer commuters on the road and many families cancelling travel plans.

Solera says that as people continue to change their driving and living habits, automotive shops that haven’t yet started to update their business models may already be significantly behind.

Solera Autodata has been tracking the international COVID-19 automotive-related statistics via its online technical data solution Autodata, used by more than 85,000 workshops in 132 countries. There was an international slide in workshop volume that began the second week of February. Globally, the least active week for workshops was April 5, with active users seeking technical data down 44 percent from the first week of February. During the same timeframe, overall account usage fell 38 percent, indicative of some larger multi-user shops sending staff home or staggering work hours.

Countries most affected by the decline include; New Zealand (80%), South Africa (68%), Spain (59%) and France (52%). The fall in Autodata activity in Ireland from February 2nd to April 5th was 44%, compared to 42% in the UK and only 33% in Sweden and Greece.

The overall time workshops spent online accessing data also fell dramatically from the start of the crisis. The week of February 2 represented a peak in terms of time logged researching technical repair data. By the week of April 5, this had dropped 61%. However, the industry has since seen this measure rise almost to pre-COVID levels.

However, Michael Landless, Autodata Head of Product, while optimistic about the upward trend, does caution against interpreting this data as indicating a full recovery for shops. He says, “This could reflect more complex technical issues coming to light in shops as a result of vehicles being idle or underutilised over the lockdown period.”

Overall, active Autodata users have recovered close to almost 98 percent of the pre-crisis total, with page views currently standing at 94%. Some of this reflects new uptake in the Autodata product, as workshops explore online tools to help them adjust to the “new normal.”

Autodata says it has continued to improve its online offering, with 427 new vehicle variants added and 10,245 technical information updates made since the start of lockdown, across cars, light commercial vehicles, and motorcycles.