Data released by the European carmakers’ association Acea confirms earlier released JD Power figures that showed a slight decline in European car sales in January.
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According to ACEA, new passenger car registrations slipped 0.3% in Europe in January, with robust sales in emerging markets to the east offsetting stagnant sales in the west.
One positive was a rebound in Germany. Of the five major markets in Western Europe, only Germany registered more cars than last year, with a 10.5% increase. While a rise in VAT contributed to an unusually weak 2007, the German market in January was the second highest sales volume in the last five years.
British registrations were down by 2.1%, French by 5.6%, Italian by 7.3% and Spanish by 12.7%.
“This may be due to the global credit crunch, impacting spending and confidence,” ACEA said. Almost half of the EU15 countries saw their registrations decrease in January.
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By GlobalDataMost observers expect the European car market to be flat or slightly down in 2008, with much resting on the path of the European economy and interest rates.
Registrations for the European Union and EFTA countries combined totalled 1,308,761 units in January, according to the ACEA figures.
The new EU Member States remained on a positive trend. For the fourth month in a row, their registrations went up by more than 10%, rising by 20.1% in January.
The most dynamic market was Lithuania, which registered the biggest increase with 55.2% more cars than in January 2007, followed by Slovakia (+36.6%), Romania (34.5%) and Poland (24.6%).
In absolute figures, the four leading markets clearly are Romania,Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, which all registered over 10,000 new passenger cars, and close to 30,000 in the case of Romania and Poland.
At manufacturer level, two poor performers stood out from the pack – GM and Toyota. GM recently announced a decline to the profitability of its European operations. It’s January sales overall were off 10.3% on last year, in spite of sales growth for its Saab and Chevrolet brands – the decline accounted for by Opel/Vauxhall (-11.8%).
Toyota’s January decline was 12.5% led by a whopping 27% decline at Lexus.
A Toyota spokesperson told just-auto that January’s Lexus decline followed a very strong December (up 32% year-on-year) and that supply issues on some hybrid models had depressed January sales. “Those supply issues are expected to be resolved in Q2,” she added.
Some analysts believe that Lexus is struggling in an extremely competitive European luxury car market and is not helped by the absence of certain engine-transmission combinations in the fight with established luxury brands such as Mercedes and BMW.
Dave Leggett
