At Frankfurt, in the midst of a Eurozone debt crisis, auto industry heads were asked about forecast industry volumes – here are some of the responses.
GM’s expectations for this year and next year did not foresee rapid sales growth, GM Europe head Nick Reilly told Reuters.
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The European market would remain “pretty static actually (with) a little bit of growth in the US and continued growth in China.”
GM was pegging total industry car sales across Europe at around 19.6m vehicles in 2012, he said.
Ford is sticking to its forecast for industry-wide sales of around 15mvehicles in western Europe this year, despite the difficult environment, its Europe chief Stephen Odell told AFP.
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“We’re still comfortable with our full-year [total industry] forecasts of between 14.8-15.3m vehicles for the full year, probably with a weaker second half than the first half,” Odell responded when asked what about the possible effects the ongoing eurozone debt crisis might have on auto industry as a whole.
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By GlobalDataIn its traditional 19 European markets, Ford said its own sales rose by 19.3% to 17,200 vehicles in August, giving it its best-ever market share in that month of 8.2%.
“We had a very strong August sales compared with a year ago and compared with the rest of the industry,” Odell said. “The economy remains very challenging and consumers are jittery – particularly in the eurozone – but we remain optimistic.”
Ford had noticed that consumer confidence had “obviously come off” recently, but it was “still OK in some markets,” he said.
Odell said he was wary of making any concrete forecasts for next year, given the huge question marks posed by the eurozone debt crisis.
The situation was “so volatile, so difficult to predict,” he said. “My request to politicians is that even if the medicine is painful… we need to apply it quickly and robustly so we can have a sustainable base,” not just for the auto industry, but for the global economy as a whole, Odell added.
Over at Volkswagen, CEO Martin Winterkorn was a bit pessimistic, telling Reuters the automaker had lowered its outlook for global automotive market growth next year.
“It may only be 64m in 2012 and not the 66m but it still represents growth over 2011,” he said.
VW sees global car market volume at 61-62m vehicles this year.
On the other hand, PSA Peugeot Citroen CEO Philippe Varin, also talking to Reuters, said he saw no reason to change his company’s 2011 targets – he still expected a 1% drop in the European car market this year.
Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne confirmed the automaker’s targets and told Reuters 2011 and 2012 would be difficult years.
