Europe In March 2012: Car-nage

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: April 17th, 2012

European car sales are getting it on the chin. Sale in the EU were down the sixth consecutive month, with a decline of 7.0 percent compared to March last year, ACEA says. March is prime selling season in Europe, and customers refuse to buy. March registrations have not been at this level since 1998. January to March, car sales in Europe are down 7.7 percent.

MarchMarch% Chg’12’1112/11AUSTRIA37,93335,869+5.8BELGIUM59,91563,533-5.7BULGARIA1,4831,589-6.6CYPRUS1,0001,539-35.0CZECH REPUBLIC17,06417,501-2.5DENMARK12,38616,796-26.3ESTONIA1,5651,218+28.5FINLAND22,92412,585+82.2FRANCE197,774257,533-23.2GERMANY339,123327,921+3.4GREECE4,9018,531-42.6HUNGARY4,7684,457+7.0IRELAND13,10014,396-9.0ITALY138,137188,495-26.7LATVIA879873+0.7LITHUANIA1,0031,096-8.5LUXEMBURG5,3195,660-6.0NETHERLANDS52,54956,601-7.2POLAND29,63027,289+8.6PORTUGAL9,62218,930-49.2ROMANIA4,9023,793+29.2SLOVAKIA6,4276,480-0.8SLOVENIA5,1865,909-12.2SPAIN84,42788,397-4.5SWEDEN28,55529,527-3.3UNITED KINGDOM372,835366,101+1.8EUROPEAN UNION (EU27)*1,453,4071,562,619-7.0

The numbers would be much worse if volume markets Germany (+3.4 percent) and UK (+1.8 percent) would not have provided some ups in a down market.

The other volume markets, Italy (-26.7 percent) and France (-23.2 percent) look horrendous.

March EU %ShareUnitsUnits% Chg’12’11’12’1112/11ALL BRANDS1,453,4071,562,619-7.0VW Group23.421.5340,164335,647+1.3VOLKSWAGEN12.211.0177,505172,623+2.8AUDI5.64.880,90775,544+7.1SEAT2.12.330,11835,799-15.9SKODA3.53.351,33151,441-0.2Others0.00.0303240+26.3PSA Group11.112.9161,938200,845-19.4PEUGEOT6.06.987,166107,568-19.0CITROEN5.16.074,77293,277-19.8RENAULT Group7.68.9110,757139,516-20.6RENAULT6.37.391,344113,880-19.8DACIA1.31.619,41325,636-24.3FORD8.88.9128,580139,337-7.7GM Group8.89.1127,205141,963-10.4OPEL/VAUXHALL7.57.9108,844122,981-11.5CHEVROLET1.31.218,33618,949-3.2GM (US)0.00.02533-24.2FIAT Group5.56.979,742107,955-26.1FIAT4.05.157,51479,103-27.3LANCIA/CHRYSLER0.60.79,15710,565-13.3ALFA ROMEO0.71.09,86215,802-37.6JEEP0.20.12,6481,713+54.6Others0.00.0561772-27.3BMW Group6.25.690,50187,807+3.1BMW4.94.371,54267,926+5.3MINI1.31.318,95919,881-4.6DAIMLER4.94.471,69668,727+4.3MERCEDES4.43.963,78760,184+6.0SMART0.50.57,9098,543-7.4TOYOTA Group4.74.567,93069,937-2.9TOYOTA4.44.264,42566,085-2.5LEXUS0.20.23,5053,852-9.0NISSAN4.23.760,94558,458+4.3HYUNDAI3.32.748,43742,757+13.3KIA2.41.934,75729,449+18.0VOLVO1.71.724,34427,278-10.8SUZUKI1.31.318,93820,941-9.6JAGUAR LAND ROVER Group1.41.120,73416,605+24.9LAND ROVER1.10.816,57012,702+30.4JAGUAR0.30.24,1643,903+6.7MAZDA1.41.320,25120,661-2.0HONDA1.31.618,86424,712-23.7MITSUBISHI0.60.88,89712,852-30.8OTHER1.31.118,72717,172+9.1

On the manufacturer front, FIAT loses 26.1 percent, PSA 19.4 percent, and Renault 20.6 percent. All the while in Germany, Volkswagen adds 1.3 percent, BMW increases EU sales by 3.1 percent, Daimler by 4.3 percent.

No such luck at GM (- 10.4 percent) and Ford (-7.7 percent.)

Data can be downloaded here as PDF and here as Excel document.

#ACEA #BertelSchmitt #Europe #March2012 #Sales

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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3 of 9 comments

Tstag on Apr 17, 2012

So JLR is the strongest performing group of the lot? Amazing really will be interesting to see how they get on in 12 months time because the have no more capacity left at home and need to build new factories quickly to take all the new product coming down the line. I guess they are the tiger car company of the moment

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Icemilkcoffee on Apr 17, 2012

Up 82% in Finland! There's got to be an explanation for this.

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- Th009 on Apr 17, 2012
  
  Tax changes came into effect in April: cars emitting more than 110 g/km of CO2 saw price increases of some hundreds to thousands of euros (apparently EUR 10K increase for a BMW X5 at the worse end).
  
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