Europe In June 2011: Down A Bit. Chevy Gains Fail To Materialize

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

European car sales statistics are a little bit like financial news from The Old Country: Up one day, down the next. This is one of those next days. In June, new passenger car registrations dropped by 8.1 percent in the EU to 1,233,298 units. Over the first six months of 2011, a total of 7,120,499 new cars was registered, or 2.1 percent less than in the first half of last year. This according to data provided by the European Manufacturers organization ACEA.

JuneJune% ChgJan – JunJan – Jun% Chg’11’1011/10’11’1011/10LITHUANIA1,344663+102.76,6233,277+102.1LATVIA682556+22.74,0002,048+95.3ESTONIA1,333820+62.67,5033,895+92.6ICELAND1,1661,135+2.73,0561,925+58.8BULGARIA1,8231,451+25.69,1667,299+25.6SLOVAKIA6,2986,154+2.334,18327,710+23.4NETHERLANDS50,68350,681+0.0329,274270,106+21.9DENMARK16,49115,551+6.087,25373,763+18.3FINLAND11,21312,236-8.471,32862,446+14.2IRELAND11,0308,401+31.377,13467,593+14.1SWEDEN27,48528,270-2.8157,042138,079+13.7AUSTRIA32,01832,957-2.8187,593169,675+10.6NORWAY10,35411,119-6.968,50561,969+10.5GERMANY288,382289,259-0.31,622,5791,468,791+10.5HUNGARY4,1944,259-1.523,11221,537+7.3SWITZERLAND28,08631,746-11.5158,474148,505+6.7BELGIUM48,35353,872-10.2326,445320,203+1.9SLOVENIA5,7695,663+1.932,94232,403+1.7EU10*70,98175,620-6.1376,287370,833+1.5FRANCE210,172240,531-12.61,225,0841,212,436+1.0CZECH REPUBLIC16,15618,538-12.888,28489,026-0.8EU271,233,2981,341,815-8.17,120,4997,275,603-2.1LUXEMBURG4,2565,155-17.428,59629,677-3.6POLAND24,77627,231-9.0138,716147,002-5.6UNITED KINGDOM183,125195,226-6.21,029,6381,108,662-7.1ITALY168,832171,753-1.71,012,8491,165,396-13.1ROMANIA8,60610,285-16.331,75836,636-13.3PORTUGAL17,15226,029-34.191,905115,250-20.3SPAIN83,385121,484-31.4442,217604,162-26.8GREECE9,74014,790-34.155,27598,531-43.9

Being at the halfway mark of the year, let’s look at the countries. Who was naughty? Who was nice? Ignoring pocket-sized markets such as Latvia and Iceland for a moment, a pattern evolves: There are well-to-do countries in the northern half of Europe with double digit growth. And there are the Mediterranean patients with double digit losses. The UK however is getting close to Mediterranean levels of doom.

JuneJanuary – June%ShareUnitsUnits% Chg%ShareUnitsUnits% Chg’11’10’11’1011/10’11’10’11’1011/10ALL BRANDS1,233,2981,341,815-8.17,120,4997,275,603-2.1VW Group22.620.9278,415279,943-0.522.721.01,613,9891,526,757+5.7PSA Group13.213.7162,316184,143-11.913.213.9938,5891,010,604-7.1RENAULT Group9.511.0116,806147,588-20.99.710.6688,122771,559-10.8GM Group9.59.7117,386130,103-9.88.88.5628,647618,112+1.7FORD8.17.4100,48799,333+1.28.18.5576,727617,178-6.6FIAT Group7.47.491,18199,412-8.37.38.2521,852597,675-12.7BMW Group6.55.879,70677,680+2.65.85.1410,112370,135+10.8DAIMLER5.35.065,76767,615-2.74.74.6337,489331,979+1.7TOYOTA Group3.13.938,83652,365-25.84.04.2281,780306,964-8.2NISSAN3.23.039,35740,828-3.63.42.8239,096205,552+16.3HYUNDAI2.92.435,38232,416+9.12.82.5200,499185,520+8.1KIA2.11.726,19822,959+14.11.91.9135,142135,874-0.5VOLVO CAR1.81.622,63420,866+8.51.81.6127,862113,309+12.8HONDA0.91.310,76117,839-39.71.11.476,65399,674-23.1SUZUKI1.11.213,83716,259-14.91.31.491,30199,547-8.3MAZDA1.01.312,39517,320-28.41.01.374,20897,226-23.7OTHER0.31.03,51213,281-73.60.81.058,38371,439-18.3JLR0.60.67,1948,503-15.40.70.747,83650,424-5.1MITSUBISHI0.70.78,4739,519-11.00.80.657,74245,090+28.1CHRYSLER0.20.32,6553,843-30.90.20.314,46920,985-31.1

Looking at manufacturer groups, Volkswagen continues to grow and adds market share. Second ranked PSA and third ranked Renault suffer from contraction and loss of share. Amongst the American brands, the GM group adds 0.3 percent of market share, while Ford loses 0.4 in the first half of the year. The Japanese brands are earthquake-induced weak, with the exception of Nissan (+0.5 percent market share) and Mitsubishi (+0.2). Hyundai continues its climb up the ranks. Fiat looks pale around the nose.

The interesting story is Nissan: It hails from tsunami-territory, however, it grows 16.3 percent in the first half year, extending its lead over Hyundai both in growth and market share. With Renault losing nearly a point of share and Nissan gaining in Renault’s back yard, this will make for interesting discussions in the Renault boardrooms.

Full data are available as PDF and Excel. The worksheet contains finer grained data. For instance, it tells you that the GM growth goes on account of Opel. The big Chevy gains in Germany are a flash in the pan. Europe-wide, Chevrolet sold fewer cars in the first half of 2011 than in the same period of 2010, and barely maintained its market share of 1.3 percent.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

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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6 of 17 comments
  • Alluster Alluster on Jul 15, 2011

    For the first 6 months GM is up 10,500 units while Ford is down 40,500 units!! Toyota with all the production losses is only down by 25,000 Units, which is pretty impressive IMO.

    • See 1 previous
    • Geozinger Geozinger on Jul 15, 2011

      @mike978: From the start I thought the disruptions would be minimal. These companies have facilities all over the world. In Toyota's US ads, they brag about how much they source locally. It would only make sense to have volume models' supply chains kept in good order. Maybe for some unusual option packages on a high end model there may exist a shortage of parts or whole cars, but what shortages did we see in the US? (Seriously, I don't really follow the Japanese makers that closely.) I noted another post, in my area, they still have incentives on Toyotas and Nissans. If these were in short supply, would they be blowing them out with sweet financing deals?

  • Phargophil Phargophil on Jul 15, 2011

    There have been many comments made over the past few years how Sergio Marchionne is such a fine turn-around artist or master planner or some such. I can't help but notice that over the past year Fiat Group sales and market share have been on an overall downhill trend, even now when their home region is experiencing growth. If this is the leadership and technology source that is to make Chrysler resurgent, my pessimism for Chrysler is, unfortunately, reinforced.

    • See 1 previous
    • Charly Charly on Jul 15, 2011

      Fiat home region is Italy and a little bit Spain and Poland. All great performing car markets this year. Their strong point is also cheap small cars. That market shrank in Germany

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