Renault chairman Louis Schweitzer repeated on Tuesday that the car market in western Europe would fall between 3% and 4% in 2003 but said the decline would probably be closer to 3%, Reuters said.
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“We are still in a range of 3-4% but we see that in Europe except France we are closer to 3%,” he told Reuters at the Frankfurt motor show, adding that there were signs the economy had touched bottom and that he hoped this meant the market would start recovering soon.
Schweitzer repeated Renault was targeting an operating margin of 3.5-4.0% for 2003 against 4.1% in 2002, and confirmed it aimed to maintain or boost its market share in western Europe thanks to its new Megane and Scenic cars, Reuters said.
The news agency said he expected Renault’s market share in western Europe in August to be above last year’s level.
Reuters added that Schweitzer also said that Renault was in talks with publicly owned Iranian company IDRO to start a car plant in Iran and noted that Renault wanted to own 50% of the new venture though nothing had been finalised.
