Data released by the European vehicle makers’ association ACEA shows that the car market in Europe was down just 4.9% year-on-year in May.
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The result is consistent with data for Western Europe’s May car market released by JD Power earlier this month, and confirms that the market is getting a big lift from national scrappage incentives – most notably in Germany.
ACEA said that in total, 1,270,195 new cars were registered in the European market in May. Five months into the year, the European market contracted by 13.9%, ACEA said.
In Western Europe, new registrations totalled 1,197,292 in May. Austria (+4.8%), Greece (+5.1%), France (+11.8%) and Germany (+39.7%) contributed to mitigating the overall market drop to -3.2%, reflecting market support in the form of fleet renewal schemes. Similarly, Italy limited its downturn to a single digit decrease (-8.6%). In the UK (-24.8%) and Spain (-38.7%), the announcement of incentive schemes could not translate into the registration figures yet. Germany (+22.8%) was the only market to expand over that period. France (-1.4%) performed second best, followed by Austria (-3.0%). Among the major markets, the Italian contracted by 14.7%, the British by 27.9% and the Spanish by 42.7%.
Results in the new EU Member States were down 26.0% in May, with only the Czech Republic (+20.5%) and Slovakia (+46.4%) posting growth. The downturn ranged from -3.1% in Poland to -80.4% in Latvia. From January to May, Poland (+0.7%), Slovakia (+1.3%) and the Czech Republic (+5.5%) performed better than over the same period a year ago, resulting in a 27.9% overall downturn for the region
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By GlobalDataRenault’s low-cost Romanian marque – Dacia – saw its new car registrations double in May despite Dacia’s own domestic market shrinking by half, giving the brand a 2% share in Europe last month – on a par with Nissan.
Dacia has already said that it has raised output in response to higher demand from scrappage-boosted export markets.
Dacia’s West European sales this year have almost doubled to 70,000 units.
“The global demand crisis in the auto industry is not over, but there are initial indications that the downturn is decelerating,” VDA, the German automotive industry association, said in a separate statement.
It estimated that seasonally-adjusted new car registrations rose 2% last month in Western Europe over April.
ACEA maintains that the recession and financial crisis are causing huge difficulties to the European automotive industry, putting viable businesses at risk and casting a shadow over Europe’s economy
The organisation says that it is most essential that EU governments and institutions ensure access to liquidity ‘through the European Investment Bank and in other ways’.
JD Power warned that the scrappage boost to European car sales ‘marks a situation that will not likely be sustainable beyond 2009’ and forecasts that the West European car market will slip back in 2010.
See also: UK: W. Europe car sales down by just 4.2% in May
