New car sales in Spain rose 8.3% year-on-year in March to 161,906 units, the National Carmakers’ Association ANFAC told Reuters on Monday, which took the accumulated rise for the first three months of the year to 2.5%.
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Meanwhile, the news agency reported, French new car sales fell 2.5% in March to 197,458 vehicles from a year ago, while sales of the Renault group dropped by 13.3% and those of PSA Peugeot Citroen rose by 0.7%.
The CCFA car industry body reportedly said the March fall would have been 6.7% on a comparable working day basis while sales in the first quarter of 2006 were up 0.1% on a gross basis and down 3% on a comparable working day basis.
Reuters noted that the French car market has been in decline since 2002, amid a sluggish economy and low consumer confidence.
The report said Renault sales are being hurt by a lack of new models since the launch of Clio III in October last year. New car sales of the Renault brand were down 16.5% in March.
At PSA, Peugeot sales were up 0.2% and those of Citroen rose 1.3%. Fiat was up 7.4%.
The Volkswagen Group registered most sales, at 20,896 vehicles, a rise of 3.0%.
BMW shed 3.7%, DaimlerChrysler gained 9.8%, Ford group lost 12.1%, GM Europe was up 12.9% and Hyundai shed 5.3%.
Nissan fell 14.2% while Toyota , including Lexus, added 6.2%, Reuters said.
