General Motors (GM) sold 153,719 vehicles in Europe in October, 13,455 vehicles more than a year ago, for a market share of 8.9%.

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In the first 10 months of 2006, GM Europe sold 1,680,951 vehicles, an increase of 9,887 units compared to 2005. In eastern Europe, GM sold a record 140,211 vehicles in the period, an increase of 55.5% or 50,036 units.


The new Opel/Vauxhall Corsa sold 21,479 units in its first month and GM has orders for over 145,000 units. The brands now have a strategy of increasing profitability by deliberately reducing low-margin rental fleet sales.


Opel/Vauxhall sold 116,121 vehicles in October, an increase of 6,751 units or 6.2% from October 2005, reaching a market share of 6.7%. With registrations of 1,319,928 in the first 10 months of 2006, the brands captured a market share of 7.2%.


Zafira sales in the same period increased by 32%, or 46,800 units, to a total of 193,645.

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Vauxhall held second place in the UK sales charts with a 13.3% share, up by 0.8% compared to the same month last year. Retail buyers made up for the marque’s strategic withdrawal from the less-profitable fleet market. A total of 7,201 bought Vauxhalls in October 2006, compared to 4,795 the previous year, a gain of 3.5% in market share.


Saab sold 6,182 cars in Europe, reaching a market share of 0.4%. In the first 10 months of 2006, Saab sold a total of 76,551 cars in Europe and enjoyed a 14% increase (+9,485 cars) over the same period in 2005. Globally, Saab sold 112,394 cars in the first ten months, which means that the brand is on track for its best-ever year, keeping up the 7% increase compared to 2005 registrations. Saab registered record sales in the first 10 months of this year in Spain, Belgium and Canada.


With 31,109 vehicles sold in October, an increase of 7,976 cars or a sales gain of 34.5%, Chevrolet (mostly models built by GM-Daewoo in South Korea) reached a record market share of 1.8% in total Europe. Sales in Germany increased by 56% to 2,550 units, making the country the fourth largest market for Chevrolet in October, behind Russia, Italy and Ukraine.


From January to October 2006, Chevrolet sold a total of 279,177 vehicles, increasing its European sales volume by 13% compared to the same period last year. Its market share for this period reached 1.5%. The largest volume increase year-to-date took place in Chevrolet’s biggest European market, Russia, where sales grew by 66%, from 53,256 to 88,354 units.


Cadillac continued to grow in Europe where 2,749 cars were sold in the first 10 months of 2006, up 21% compared to the same period last year.


Hummer tripled sales of the H2 and H3 to 1,420 vehicles, from 471 vehicles sold in 2005.