The
sluggish German car market has hit importers harder than domestic producers, but
the importers believe their loss of market share will prove to be only temporary,
the Handelsblatt newspaper reported.
Volker Lange, president of the VDIK association of German vehicle importers,
told the newspaper that his members expect to make up lost ground quickly.
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Figures from the VDA association of automobile manufacturers show that new
car registrations in the first three months of 2001 totalled 828,400, down seven
percent on the previous year. However, import sales were down 19 percent to
266,000 year-on-year, Handelsblatt said.
Provisional VDA data showed that the combined market share of Japanese car
makers fell from 12 percent to 10.4 percent for the first quarter of 2001 while
France’s share fell from 11 percent to 9.5 percent year-on-year, Handelsblatt
said, adding that this market performance was reflected across Europe.
The newspaper said that Renault’s market share has declined to the point
where it could lose its position as the country’s number-one car importer.
In the first three months of 2001, the French company sold just 45,000 new
cars across the border, a decline of 24 percent year-on-year. Its March sales
were down 28 percent.
However,
Deutsche Renault AG expects sales to pick up in the second half of the year.
"In the first quarter, we simply had no new models," a company spokesman
told Handelsblatt, adding that a number – including the revised Clio-
are in the pipeline for the next few months.
A lack of new models is to blame for the importers’ problems, agrees Marketing
Systems, the Essen-based market-analysis institute.
"The explanation is to be found in the model cycle," Marketing Systems’
Germany expert Ulrich Winzen told the newspaper.
But he doesn’t see any increase in German market sales this year.
Handelsblatt said that the importers’ tendency to rely on the east German
market is working against them. Renault has a market share of nine percent in
east Germany but only 5.4 percent nationwide.
The effects of the economic slowdown have been felt more in the east where
Q1 year-on-year sales declined 12 percent compared with four percent in the
west.
Handelsblatt said that the dealer organisation ZDK blames the importers’ poor
east German sales on the fact that they offer very few cars that run on diesel,
which is cheaper than petrol.
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