French car registrations tumbled 12% in February, the country’s main car industry body said on Friday, as a weak economy continued to weigh on demand for new vehicles.
Registrations fell to 143,366 cars in a 15th consecutive monthly contraction, the Paris-based CCFA said in a statement cited by Reuters. Ford led the decline among major carmakers with a 33% sales slump.
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PSA Peugeot Citroen sales dropped 16% in its home market while smaller domestic rival Renault recorded an 11% decline.
The CCFA also cut its full-year market outlook, saying 2013 registrations would fall by at least 5%, compared with a “stable” forecast given at the start of the year.
The February decline also reflected a smaller number of sales days than in the year earlier month. Corrected for these calendar effects, registrations fell a more modest 7.7%.
Volkswagen, which has so far resisted the worst of Europe’s protracted market slump, recorded a 7.5% drop in February sales. Its French market share rose to 14.14% for the first two months of the year from 13.77% a year earlier.
Hyundai-Kia bucked the falling market with a 5% gain – buoyed by a 24% sales surge for the Hyundai brand.
Toyota sales rose 12% as the Japanese automaker continued to recover business lost in the wake of the 2011 tsunami and resulting industrial disruption.
BMW also claimed a bigger share of the shrinking French market as its sales fell just 2.7%.
