Passenger car registrations in Germany failed to show any recovery in October and were down 4.1% compared to a year ago to 281,845 cars. There was some relief as this was a big improvement on September when registrations fell 11%.

Go deeper with GlobalData

Premium Insights

The gold standard of business intelligence.

Find out more


Registrations in the first 10 months of the year were down 8% to 2.62m vehicles.


The VDA trade group is very pessimistic for the remaining two months of the year. Sales at the end of 2006 were strong as customers brought purchases forward ahead of the introduction of a new higher rate of value-added tax (VAT) in January 2007.


Some manufacturers bucked the trend, according to data published by the Kraftfahrtbundesamt (KBA). BMW/Mini sales were up 14%, giving it a market share of 9.2%. Mercedes sales were up 0.7% (market share 10.6%), and Smart sales were up 34.8%. Porsche recorded growth of 4.4.%.


GM’s Opel sales were down over 20%. Ford managed a better performance of -6.3% and Volkswagen was down 5.7%.

How well do you really know your competitors?

Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.

Company Profile – free sample

Thank you!

Your download email will arrive shortly

Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample

We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form

By GlobalData
Visit our Privacy Policy for more information about our services, how we may use, process and share your personal data, including information of your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address.

Import makes generally performed a lot worse. Citroen sales were down 15.3%, Honda lost 23.4%, Nissan 17.6% and Renault 5.6%.


Taking a 10-month view, none of the major manufacturers has recorded any significant growth. Mercedes sales were up 0.1% and Porsche up 3.6%, but all others registered a decline including: BMW/Mini -2.7%, GM -23.8%, Ford -14.2%, Volkswagen -9.3% and Toyota -8.5%.