West
European car demand in May was intermediate between the two very poor months at
the start of 2001, and the two much better months that followed. The seasonally
adjusted selling rate came in at 14.6 mn (see Table at foot of this note), the
same as the average for the year to date. There has been a slight recovery in
German demand from the very depressed levels of the recent past; but this has
been offset by weaker results in a number of smaller countries, and a Spanish
selling rate which failed to match last month’s exceptionally strong figure.

At the same time, indications from order intake data provide a warning that
the improvement in Germany may not last; though they continue to provide encouraging
indications for Italy and for France. When light commercial vehicles are included,
we estimate the selling rate for all light vehicles (less than 6 tonnes gvw)
to have been 16.3 mn units in Western Europe, with a rate of decline slightly
higher than for cars alone. Looking beyond Western Europe to include in addition
the countries that will eventually accede to the EU, the decline has been substantially
steeper, because of a collapse in Turkish sales and a steep decline in Poland.
We estimate the year-on-year decline on this basis at 5.5% for the year to date.

There was no difference in the number of weekdays between this year and last,
but, exceptionally, Ascension Day fell in June last year. There was therefore
one less working day during May this year than last year in those countries
which celebrate a public holiday on that day – that is, all countries in Western
Europe except Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the UK.

The chart below shows total West European sales. The squares represent the
total number of cars sold in a year, while the hollow dots represent the selling
rate in individual months, and the continuous line represents a moving average
of these. We indicate the latest two months. The most recent numbers underlying
this chart are appended in a Table at the end of this note.

Final data from the Kraftfahrt Bundesamt show German sales of 295,013 units
in April, and our estimate of the May outcome is 322,500 units. Both the April
and May numbers represent substantial improvements on the selling rate in the
opening months of the year. In the first quarter, the selling rate averaged
just 3.2 mn units/year, while April produced a selling rate of 3.4, and May
3.55. (In terms of the year-on-year comparisons, April showed an increase of
7% and May a decline of 8%, but as always, this tells us as much about the pattern
of sales last year as about this year). On the face of it, these increases in
the selling rate seem to represent the beginnings of a return to normal after
the very poor first quarter results. However, it would still be premature to
reach this conclusion. Incoming order data remain even weaker than in the recent
past, and this brings the threat of more unpleasant surprises in the following
months’ registrations data. Our website carries a freely downloadable pdf file
with our reflections on the downturn in German sales during last year and this
year.

“The French
data produced another pleasant surprise.”

The French data produced another pleasant surprise. It came in the wake of
some rather discouraging macro-economic data, showing no further fall in unemployment
in the latest reported month, and very disappointing results from INSEE’s surveys
of both producer and consumer confidence. It therefore came as something of
a relief to note that the 209,341 car sales in May corresponds to a selling
rate of over 2.25 mn units/year. Total sales in the first five months of the
year are showing a rise of 4.2%, and the crude increase for May was 3.8%. So
far, there is no reflection of the poor economic news in the data on incoming
orders, any more than in the registrations data. The order intake in May was
a little lower than last year, but this merely offset a slight rise in April.
The order backlog looks healthy enough – not surprisingly, given the recent
launch of such an important new model as the Peugeot 307.

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The UK selling rate in May was identical to that in April, at 2.3 mn units/year,
but a little below the average for the year to date, which had been swelled
by the exceptionally strong March result. The pattern of large rises in private
sales more than offsetting declines in fleet sales has continued. However, the
year-on-year rise in private sales was substantially lower in May, at 12% compared
with 19% in the four previous months, and the decline in business and fleet
sales was also smaller, at 5% in May compared to 9% in the four previous months.
Despite sluggish economic growth and a continuing competitiveness problem affecting
manufacturing industry, consumer confidence has been relatively well maintained,
though it has been drifting slightly downwards since reaching its recent peak
in March.

ANFIA’s press release on the Italian market has a very upbeat tone, but we
found the provisional May figure of 234,500 slightly disappointing. UNRAE’s
press release points out that the election may have disrupted the normal flow
of sales, and in this light the result is certainly no cause for alarm. It translates
into a SAAR of 2.2 mn units/year, which is considerably below the results for
the earlier months of the year. Total sales during the first five months of
the year are reported by ANFIA as being down by 1.7%. We estimate a slightly
smaller decline of 0.8% (we have a different method of estimating the future
revisions that will be made by the Motorizzazione, which continues to revise
monthly registrations numbers – normally upwards – in its database for up to
a year). Even if May was a little disappointing, the average selling rate of
the first five months remains exactly in line with last year’s total sales of
2.4 mn units. In addition, the inflow of new orders in May remained strong.
The backlog of unfilled orders is now higher than it was a year ago, suggesting
that the selling rate will be stable in the immediate future. In brief, the
Italian market remains one of the strong points in the West European scene.

UNRAE comments that June sales will “certainly” be higher than last June’s.
We agree with their thinking (though we are always a little nervous about using
the word “certainly” in the context of statements about the future).

“The UK selling rate in May was
identical to that in April“

Spanish sales of cars and off-road vehicles totalled 142,782 units in May,
a rise of 5.2% compared to last May. Total sales in the first five months are
down by just 0.3%. The May result was perhaps not quite as good as it looks
at first glance, even though, as the ANFAC press release points out, it is a
record for the month of May. It translates into a selling rate of just 1.4 mn
units/year, below the average for the first five months of 1.5 mn units/year,
and even further below the excellent April selling rate. On the positive side,
it was once again private buyers, rather than rental companies, that contributed
most of the increase. A tentative conclusion from the May figure could be that
the impetus from the changes to the incentive scheme, which boosted demand from
the start of this year, is now beginning to fade a little. The selling rate
in May has more in common with what we were seeing in the closing months of
last year than with the strong selling rates of the previous months.

Among the smaller countries, Sweden continues to post large declines on a year-on-year
comparison – the May result was down 22.5% on this measure. However, demand
now appears to have stabilised: in terms of the SAAR, the May result represents
a continuation of the rate of approximately 250,000 units/year that we have
seen each month this year. The same applies to Norway, the Netherlands and Finland:
a significant decline on the year-on-year comparison but stability of the selling
rate compared with the immediately foregoing months. In Belgium, the May result
was down 9.9% year-on-year, but continued the steady improvement in the monthly
selling rates from a low point in January.

\sgf	Sales (units)						Selling rate (Units/year)
\sgb	May 2001	May 2000	Percent change	Jan-May 2001	Jan-May 2000	Percent change	May 2001	Jan-May 2001	Year 2000	Percent change
WESTERN EUROPE	1,408,049	1,451,436	-3.0%	6,799,285	7,033,272	-3.3%	14,641,008	14,645,807	14,941,464	-2.0%
AUSTRIA	30,993	32,672	-5.1%	143,873	150,925	-4.7%	301,882	293,613	309,427	-5.1%
BELGIUM	45,980	51,029	-9.9%	243,690	281,041	-13.3%	524,428	472,645	515,204	-8.3%
DENMARK	10,811	11,566	-6.5%	41,736	53,314	-21.7%	94,291	89,877	113,179	-20.6%
FINLAND	11,415	15,008	-23.9%	51,686	68,266	-24.3%	110,384	105,559	134,660	-21.6%
FRANCE	203,941	196,549	3.8%	983,563	944,004	4.2%	2,269,952	2,199,000	2,134,120	3.0%
GERMANY	322,500	351,647	-8.3%	1,451,929	1,520,761	-4.5%	3,566,481	3,303,761	3,378,343	-2.2%
GREECE	28,780	27,989	2.8%	131,317	139,506	-5.9%	284,399	274,122	290,222	-5.5%
IRELAND	21,709	27,041	-19.7%	118,231	156,918	-24.7%	180,356	184,172	231,010	-20.3%
ITALY	234,500	237,170	-1.1%	1,208,042	1,218,176	-0.8%	2,173,959	2,441,429	2,429,070	0.5%
LUXEMBOURG	4,140	4,430	-6.5%	21,282	21,861	-2.6%	40,981	40,413	41,449	-2.5%
NETHERLANDS	51,300	58,123	-11.7%	263,546	322,379	-18.2%	493,814	497,564	597,628	-16.7%
NORWAY	8,671	9,871	-12.2%	38,634	44,265	-12.7%	88,645	91,271	97,376	-6.3%
PORTUGAL	27,796	25,697	8.2%	115,700	132,118	-12.4%	281,311	254,184	289,941	-12.3%
SPAIN	142,782	135,708	5.2%	654,002	656,163	-0.3%	1,371,249	1,497,822	1,472,146	1.7%
SWEDEN	25,081	32,354	-22.5%	106,203	123,528	-14.0%	250,509	249,679	290,529	-14.1%
SWITZERLAND	34,030	33,469	1.7%	141,152	142,955	-1.3%	312,993	310,513	314,482	-1.3%
UK	203,619	201,113	1.2%	1,084,698	1,057,092	2.6%	2,295,376	2,340,182	2,302,678	1.6%
Notes:	Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland: latest month estimated by LMC
	Italy: latest month provisional estimate by Motorizzazione, previous months based on estimate of eventual revisions to Motorizzazione data
	Netherlands, Germany: provisional estimate based on data excluding the final days of the latest month
	Spain and Portugal: figures include sports utilities, which are reported separately from cars
	UK: includes estimates for non-dealer sales
	The percent change in the final column compares the average selling rate in the year-to-date with the last full year
	The average of the seasonally adjusted selling rate for an entire year is by definition the total volume of sales in the year.