Batten hatches! Europe is on an emergency dive. According to data just released by the ACEA, sales in May dropped by 9.3 percent compared to May 2009. Our Ford canary in the EU coal mine was right again: May numbers were worse than April numbers. In April, the EU market had been down 7.4 percent. But that’s not the worst part.
The really bad part is that May 2010 was the worst May in eight years, as the picture above illustrates in unabashed cruelty.
Growth in Europe is at an all-time low. Since November 2009, it has been going downhill, interrupted only in March due to expiring cash-for-clunker programs. As government support is being withdrawn, Europe has a communal case of cold turkey.
Country Ranking EU27, May 2010
| May | May | % Chg | ||
| Rank | ’10 | ’09 | 10/09 % | |
| GERMANY | 1 | 249,708 | 384,578 | -35.1 |
| FRANCE | 2 | 186,268 | 210,442 | -11.5 |
| ITALY | 3 | 163,700 | 189,878 | -13.8 |
| UNITED KINGDOM | 4 | 153,095 | 134,858 | +13.5 |
| SPAIN | 5 | 102,873 | 71,160 | +44.6 |
| BELGIUM | 6 | 47,725 | 37,976 | +25.7 |
| NETHERLANDS | 7 | 37,107 | 30,857 | +20.3 |
| AUSTRIA | 8 | 29,057 | 29,732 | -2.3 |
| POLAND*** | 9 | 25,638 | 25,326 | +1.2 |
| SWEDEN | 10 | 24,994 | 18,215 | +37.2 |
| PORTUGAL | 11 | 19,232 | 13,113 | +46.7 |
| CZECH REPUBLIC | 12 | 15,885 | 14,277 | +11.3 |
| DENMARK | 13 | 12,174 | 9,342 | +30.3 |
| GREECE | 14 | 11,928 | 25,997 | -54.1 |
| FINLAND | 15 | 10,701 | 7,237 | +47.9 |
| IRELAND | 16 | 8,677 | 5,086 | +70.6 |
| ROMANIA | 17 | 8,657 | 11,475 | -24.6 |
| SLOVENIA | 18 | 5,551 | 4,778 | +16.2 |
| LUXEMBURG | 19 | 5,158 | 4,479 | +15.2 |
| SLOVAKIA | 20 | 4,930 | 8,469 | -41.8 |
| HUNGARY | 21 | 3,388 | 4,512 | -24.9 |
| BULGARIA | 22 | 1,291 | 2,173 | -40.6 |
| ESTONIA | 23 | 769 | 669 | +14.9 |
| LITHUANIA | 24 | 658 | 671 | -1.9 |
| LATVIA | 25 | 344 | 356 | -3.4 |
| EU 27 | 1,129,508 | 1,245,656 | -9.3 |
In the country ranking, everything is back to what we were used to. Germany leads, with France, Italy, and the UK to follow. All with heavy losses. The only serious dislocation is in Spain with a 44.6 percent plus. Wait for the loud bang when that comes down.
Manufacturer Ranking EU27, May 2010
| May | ||||||
| %Share | Units | Units | % Chg | |||
| Rank | ’10 | ’09 | ’10 | ’09 | 10/09 % | |
| ALL BRANDS | 1,129,508 | 1,245,656 | -9.3 | |||
| VW Group | 1 | 22.1 | 21.8 | 249,100 | 271,467 | -8.2 |
| PSA Group | 2 | 13.9 | 13.3 | 157,257 | 166,012 | -5.3 |
| RENAULT Group | 3 | 10.5 | 9.0 | 118,631 | 112,058 | +5.9 |
| FORD Group | 4 | 9.4 | 9.9 | 106,485 | 122,711 | -13.2 |
| GM Group | 5 | 8.3 | 9.4 | 93,947 | 116,559 | -19.4 |
| FIAT Group | 6 | 7.9 | 9.2 | 88,900 | 114,937 | -22.7 |
| BMW Group | 7 | 5.5 | 5.1 | 61,577 | 63,313 | -2.7 |
| DAIMLER | 8 | 5.2 | 4.9 | 58,681 | 61,514 | -4.6 |
| TOYOTA Group | 9 | 3.9 | 4.6 | 43,790 | 56,922 | -23.1 |
| NISSAN | 10 | 2.7 | 2.0 | 30,035 | 25,478 | +17.9 |
| HYUNDAI | 11 | 2.5 | 2.3 | 27,702 | 28,865 | -4.0 |
| KIA | 12 | 1.9 | 1.6 | 21,303 | 20,279 | +5.0 |
| MAZDA | 13 | 1.3 | 1.1 | 14,307 | 13,444 | +6.4 |
| HONDA | 14 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 14,191 | 18,807 | -24.5 |
| SUZUKI | 15 | 1.2 | 1.7 | 14,082 | 20,885 | -32.6 |
| JLR Group | 16 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 7,829 | 6,080 | +28.8 |
| MITSUBISHI | 17 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 5,899 | 8,407 | -29.8 |
| CHRYSLER | 18 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 3,380 | 4,170 | -18.9 |
| OTHER | 1.1 | 1.1 | 12,412 | 13,748 | -9.7 | |
In the ranking of manufacturers, Volkswagen is still the unassailable king of the European hill. Their market share strengthened a bit, from 22.1 percent in April to 22.6 percent in May. Renault gains more than 1 percent in market share and bumps Ford from the podium. Daimler gains impressive 1.2 percent in market share and kicks Toyota off place 8. No major developments in the peanut gallery.
Manufacturer Ranking EU27, Jan-May 2010
| January – May | ||||||
| %Share | Units | Units | % Chg | |||
| Rank | ’10 | ’09 | ’10 | ’09 | 10/09 % | |
| ALL BRANDS | 5,943,096 | 5,833,487 | +1.9 | |||
| VW Group | 1 | 21.0 | 21.4 | 1,247,360 | 1,247,365 | -0.0 |
| PSA Group | 2 | 13.9 | 12.9 | 825,652 | 751,767 | +9.8 |
| RENAULT Group | 3 | 10.5 | 8.6 | 623,881 | 499,589 | +24.9 |
| FORD Group | 4 | 10.3 | 10.3 | 612,790 | 603,300 | +1.6 |
| GM Group | 5 | 8.4 | 9.3 | 499,182 | 540,081 | -7.6 |
| FIAT Group | 6 | 8.3 | 9.2 | 490,648 | 534,552 | -8.2 |
| BMW Group | 7 | 4.9 | 4.7 | 292,752 | 271,946 | +7.7 |
| DAIMLER | 8 | 4.4 | 4.7 | 264,364 | 272,730 | -3.1 |
| TOYOTA Group | 9 | 4.3 | 5.0 | 256,872 | 292,240 | -12.1 |
| NISSAN | 10 | 2.8 | 2.1 | 164,995 | 123,686 | +33.4 |
| HYUNDAI | 11 | 2.6 | 2.3 | 153,325 | 134,887 | +13.7 |
| KIA | 12 | 1.9 | 1.6 | 110,609 | 92,249 | +19.9 |
| MAZDA | 13 | 1.4 | 1.8 | 83,452 | 104,668 | -20.3 |
| HONDA | 14 | 1.4 | 1.8 | 81,747 | 106,600 | -23.3 |
| SUZUKI | 15 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 80,031 | 86,750 | -7.7 |
| JLR Group | 16 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 41,913 | 34,242 | +22.4 |
| MITSUBISHI | 17 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 35,088 | 43,865 | -20.0 |
| CHRYSLER | 18 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 17,106 | 21,337 | -19.8 |
| OTHER | 1.0 | 1.2 | 61,329 | 71,634 | -14.4 | |
Lastly, the situation for the first five months. It will be interesting to watch Renault battle with Ford, GM duke it out with Fiat, and the odd race between Toyota and Daimler.
In the next months, the situation will look worse. The cash-for-clunker Dexedrine needs to work itself out of the veins and markets, and it will be very, very ugly. Keep that klaxon close.
If you haven’t enough of bad news, all data can be downloaded as PDF, and if you want to crunch numbers and grit teeth, as Excel table.
The drop from 2009 is about 115K units — less than the 130K drop in Germany alone. That means that the rest of Europe is pretty much flat from 2009 to 2010. Given that few (any?) countries are running incentive programs any more, that’s actually not that bad in my opinion.
Well, If you look at the table you can see that pretty much nothing is flat in Europe (except Austria and Poland), but that it is just a huge collection of double digit drops and increases.
In Germanys case, the drop compared to 09 is dramatic, the one compared to 2008 less so (though 5-10% drop is quite bad). However, looking at sales Jan-May, one could argue that the german AWP(cash4clunkers) was a success. Sofar in 2010, 300.000 cars were sold more than in the normal year 2008. In 2009, so far just 150k cars were sold less than in 2008. Plus, for the european OEMs, selling cars at home in 2009 might very well have been more important than it is in 2010, due to the more or less recovering worldwide markets.
Talking about Manufacturers, I find Fords drop rather strange, giving the increase in UK-sales, where Ford traditionally is very strong. Fiat is no surprise, they were a huge winner of C4C programs, plus a drop in the home market…
Shouldn’t GM be in 5th (8.3% Market Share) and Fiat in 6th (7.9% Market Share)?? Or are the labels incorrect …..
I just answered my own question. The market share information shown above is only for May. Upon opening the spreadsheet, I see where YTD the ranking is correct with Fiat 5th and GM 6th.
That will teach me!!!!!
Tough crowd, but you are right.
Give me a few minutes while I fiddle with Excel plus HTML. As an extra bonus, I’ll give you May and the first five months (which are more significant.) Hold your horses …
Das schlimmste oder nichts…
A whole lot of both.
Why the huge increase in Spain?
I am a bit surprised a the Chrysler numbers. Maybe it is the Madrid neighborhoods where I hang out, but it seems as if 1 out of 10 cars is a town and country.
Am I right in assuming on an annualized basis, the US is now third behind China and the EU in car sales?
It’s close, but the US is still ahead of the combined buying power of most of Europe by about 57,000 vehicles, year to date.
“Europe” has been the world’s largest auto market for quite a while, but nobody counts “Europe” as Europe.
NulloModo: Rolleyes
Every European nation of consequence other than Russia seems to be counted, but since Russia straddles Europe and Asia, how do you split its sales? I’m guessing the majority would go into the Euro column, as the majority of the population seems to live on that side.
As long as we are going to go all continental though, North America would still stomp Europe as a whole, even with Russia and the other non-EU nations added.
It begs the question though, and a question I’m not willing to do the data-dive to answer, which continent buys the most cars?
Number one would either be North America or Asia, and I think it would be close.
Third place would probably go to Europe, with fourth heading to either South America or Australia, and Africa would (as usual with any metric not dealing with AIDS infection, genocide, or vuvuzelas) bring up the rear, not counting Antarctica of course, until global warming makes McMurdo station the new riveria destination of choice.
Nullo, nullo: There is something called the EU, aka EU27. Those are counted here. They share common rules, common laws, many of them (much to their current chagrin) share a common currency and a common border. There’s a European Parliament, and a court. Once a country is a member, its people can move freely and work anywhere within the EU. Come back after the Tijuana border crossing is gone. Would make it easier for me to return after visiting its main attraction …
Forget about cars for a moment… That movie is so good it almost makes me want to go join the navy, or even the Kriegsmarine.
+1 on that.
I’ve still got a copy of it on Beta (and yes, my Beta player still works fine!!!!). Also on DVD …..
That movie has a special meaning for me. The producer was a friend of mine. Go back to the Autobiography of BS and look for the shoot of the Audi video. Same guy. Bernd, where are you?
One of my favorite war movies, and has absolutely amazing production values!
My ability to understand German is good enough to be able to watch it in German, which makes it come more alive IMHO.
So what is different in Spain and Portugal? Seat? And what has Renault done right? All new lineup? Major refresh? Massive pricedrops?
Does anyone know what the average age of the lineups are for the manus? I’m working on the assumption that the oldest fleets are the ones with the greatest losses.
Weird that Belgium outsells Holland even though its population is only 2/3