European car sales are getting it on the chin. Sale in the EU were down the sixth consecutive month, with a decline of 7.0 percent compared to March last year, ACEA says. March is prime selling season in Europe, and customers refuse to buy. March registrations have not been at this level since 1998. January to March, car sales in Europe are down 7.7 percent.
| March | March | % Chg | |
| ’12 | ’11 | 12/11 | |
| AUSTRIA | 37,933 | 35,869 | +5.8 |
| BELGIUM | 59,915 | 63,533 | -5.7 |
| BULGARIA | 1,483 | 1,589 | -6.6 |
| CYPRUS | 1,000 | 1,539 | -35.0 |
| CZECH REPUBLIC | 17,064 | 17,501 | -2.5 |
| DENMARK | 12,386 | 16,796 | -26.3 |
| ESTONIA | 1,565 | 1,218 | +28.5 |
| FINLAND | 22,924 | 12,585 | +82.2 |
| FRANCE | 197,774 | 257,533 | -23.2 |
| GERMANY | 339,123 | 327,921 | +3.4 |
| GREECE | 4,901 | 8,531 | -42.6 |
| HUNGARY | 4,768 | 4,457 | +7.0 |
| IRELAND | 13,100 | 14,396 | -9.0 |
| ITALY | 138,137 | 188,495 | -26.7 |
| LATVIA | 879 | 873 | +0.7 |
| LITHUANIA | 1,003 | 1,096 | -8.5 |
| LUXEMBURG | 5,319 | 5,660 | -6.0 |
| NETHERLANDS | 52,549 | 56,601 | -7.2 |
| POLAND | 29,630 | 27,289 | +8.6 |
| PORTUGAL | 9,622 | 18,930 | -49.2 |
| ROMANIA | 4,902 | 3,793 | +29.2 |
| SLOVAKIA | 6,427 | 6,480 | -0.8 |
| SLOVENIA | 5,186 | 5,909 | -12.2 |
| SPAIN | 84,427 | 88,397 | -4.5 |
| SWEDEN | 28,555 | 29,527 | -3.3 |
| UNITED KINGDOM | 372,835 | 366,101 | +1.8 |
| EUROPEAN UNION (EU27)* | 1,453,407 | 1,562,619 | -7.0 |
The numbers would be much worse if volume markets Germany (+3.4 percent) and UK (+1.8 percent) would not have provided some ups in a down market.
The other volume markets, Italy (-26.7 percent) and France (-23.2 percent) look horrendous.
| March EU | |||||
| %Share | Units | Units | % Chg | ||
| ’12 | ’11 | ’12 | ’11 | 12/11 | |
| ALL BRANDS | 1,453,407 | 1,562,619 | -7.0 | ||
| VW Group | 23.4 | 21.5 | 340,164 | 335,647 | +1.3 |
| VOLKSWAGEN | 12.2 | 11.0 | 177,505 | 172,623 | +2.8 |
| AUDI | 5.6 | 4.8 | 80,907 | 75,544 | +7.1 |
| SEAT | 2.1 | 2.3 | 30,118 | 35,799 | -15.9 |
| SKODA | 3.5 | 3.3 | 51,331 | 51,441 | -0.2 |
| Others | 0.0 | 0.0 | 303 | 240 | +26.3 |
| PSA Group | 11.1 | 12.9 | 161,938 | 200,845 | -19.4 |
| PEUGEOT | 6.0 | 6.9 | 87,166 | 107,568 | -19.0 |
| CITROEN | 5.1 | 6.0 | 74,772 | 93,277 | -19.8 |
| RENAULT Group | 7.6 | 8.9 | 110,757 | 139,516 | -20.6 |
| RENAULT | 6.3 | 7.3 | 91,344 | 113,880 | -19.8 |
| DACIA | 1.3 | 1.6 | 19,413 | 25,636 | -24.3 |
| FORD | 8.8 | 8.9 | 128,580 | 139,337 | -7.7 |
| GM Group | 8.8 | 9.1 | 127,205 | 141,963 | -10.4 |
| OPEL/VAUXHALL | 7.5 | 7.9 | 108,844 | 122,981 | -11.5 |
| CHEVROLET | 1.3 | 1.2 | 18,336 | 18,949 | -3.2 |
| GM (US) | 0.0 | 0.0 | 25 | 33 | -24.2 |
| FIAT Group | 5.5 | 6.9 | 79,742 | 107,955 | -26.1 |
| FIAT | 4.0 | 5.1 | 57,514 | 79,103 | -27.3 |
| LANCIA/CHRYSLER | 0.6 | 0.7 | 9,157 | 10,565 | -13.3 |
| ALFA ROMEO | 0.7 | 1.0 | 9,862 | 15,802 | -37.6 |
| JEEP | 0.2 | 0.1 | 2,648 | 1,713 | +54.6 |
| Others | 0.0 | 0.0 | 561 | 772 | -27.3 |
| BMW Group | 6.2 | 5.6 | 90,501 | 87,807 | +3.1 |
| BMW | 4.9 | 4.3 | 71,542 | 67,926 | +5.3 |
| MINI | 1.3 | 1.3 | 18,959 | 19,881 | -4.6 |
| DAIMLER | 4.9 | 4.4 | 71,696 | 68,727 | +4.3 |
| MERCEDES | 4.4 | 3.9 | 63,787 | 60,184 | +6.0 |
| SMART | 0.5 | 0.5 | 7,909 | 8,543 | -7.4 |
| TOYOTA Group | 4.7 | 4.5 | 67,930 | 69,937 | -2.9 |
| TOYOTA | 4.4 | 4.2 | 64,425 | 66,085 | -2.5 |
| LEXUS | 0.2 | 0.2 | 3,505 | 3,852 | -9.0 |
| NISSAN | 4.2 | 3.7 | 60,945 | 58,458 | +4.3 |
| HYUNDAI | 3.3 | 2.7 | 48,437 | 42,757 | +13.3 |
| KIA | 2.4 | 1.9 | 34,757 | 29,449 | +18.0 |
| VOLVO | 1.7 | 1.7 | 24,344 | 27,278 | -10.8 |
| SUZUKI | 1.3 | 1.3 | 18,938 | 20,941 | -9.6 |
| JAGUAR LAND ROVER Group | 1.4 | 1.1 | 20,734 | 16,605 | +24.9 |
| LAND ROVER | 1.1 | 0.8 | 16,570 | 12,702 | +30.4 |
| JAGUAR | 0.3 | 0.2 | 4,164 | 3,903 | +6.7 |
| MAZDA | 1.4 | 1.3 | 20,251 | 20,661 | -2.0 |
| HONDA | 1.3 | 1.6 | 18,864 | 24,712 | -23.7 |
| MITSUBISHI | 0.6 | 0.8 | 8,897 | 12,852 | -30.8 |
| OTHER | 1.3 | 1.1 | 18,727 | 17,172 | +9.1 |
On the manufacturer front, FIAT loses 26.1 percent, PSA 19.4 percent, and Renault 20.6 percent. All the while in Germany, Volkswagen adds 1.3 percent, BMW increases EU sales by 3.1 percent, Daimler by 4.3 percent.
No such luck at GM (- 10.4 percent) and Ford (-7.7 percent.)
Data can be downloaded here as PDF and here as Excel document.
Why is March prime selling time in Europe?
Rent-à-Car sales boost the industry as rental firms renew their fleets for the Easter holiday season in April
In the UK there is a new license plate number from 1st March. This usually gets some sales bounce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_United_Kingdom#Year_identifiers
Austerity at work!
Mitsubishi… Ouch! 30% drop is horrible performance.
Honda’s is pretty bad too at around a 24%drop putting it slightly behind Suzuki!
So JLR is the strongest performing group of the lot? Amazing really will be interesting to see how they get on in 12 months time because the have no more capacity left at home and need to build new factories quickly to take all the new product coming down the line. I guess they are the tiger car company of the moment
Up 82% in Finland! There’s got to be an explanation for this.
Tax changes came into effect in April: cars emitting more than 110 g/km of CO2 saw price increases of some hundreds to thousands of euros (apparently EUR 10K increase for a BMW X5 at the worse end).