Deutschland Unter Alles: Cars Crater
If you go to Germany, as I did today, you won’t see or feel much of a recession. If you read the GMSM (German Main Stream Media – and I had 9 hours of reading the latest editions today while flying in from Beijing) you’ll learn that the jobless rate is contained, that people are buying, that Frau Merkel sees no need for s stimulus package, and that retail is looking for 150,000 temps to help them with the Christmas boom. All divvy in Deutschland?
When you go to a bit less than main stream, you are in for a shock: “German new cars sales down by 18 percent” says Automobilwoche (sub.) Aua! After slowly decreasing over the month, November sales suddenly cratered in Deutschland. It looks more and more like 2008 will be the worst year since 1989. Who was the worst performer in the volume segments? You guessed it: Opel. Down 36 percent. BMW lost 20.8 percent, VW shed 18.6 percent. Horrors! Mini cars went out of style, bigtime: The Smart lost nearly 46 percent. Best performer: Audi with a loss of only 1.1 percent. If you want the official government data in full gory detail, here they are.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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My high school German is not what it used to be. Is the link the German version of Autoweek? Or is it a free site?
AFAIK, Automobilwoche is a German branch of the Financial Week. It's a good source for hard facts without emotions. Anyway, most of their content is free if you register. Some articles are reserved for subscribers, some are free for all.
@factotum: Yes, you are right. Automobilwoche belongs to Crain, publishers of industry rags all over the globe. As Tom says, it's a good source, and it is as reliable as they come. Very accepted in the trade. Anyway, the official KBA (Kraftfahrtbundesamt) government data are in the link.