Sales of new cars in Spain plunged 49.6% year-on-year in November to 63,068 units on the back of a sharp economic slowdown, according to ANFAC data.
“This decline brushes on the biggest monthly drop in the history of the car market,” the Spanish automobile manufacturers’ association ANFAC said in a statement.
“Restrictions on access to credit, together with the continued loss of jobs and the lower income available to families is keeping consumer confidence levels at a minimum, limiting the sale of vehicles,” it added.
During the first 11 months of the year new car sales dropped 26% to units over the same year-ago period to 1,470,394 vehicles.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s socialist government earmarked 800 million euros (one billion dollars) of the 11-billion-euro economic stimulus package which it unveiled last week to the country’s ailing auto makers, who are also suffering a sharp fall in demand from the rest of Europe.
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ANFAC said it hoped that the measures to help the sector “would be put in place quickly”.
