Europe In May 2012: Losses Widen

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

The European car market – if taken together, the world’s second largest behind China and before the U.S. – continues its slow drift to the bottom. Sales in May were down by 8.7 percent in the EU. This is the eighth month in a row that sales are in minus territory. Five months into the year, the market is down 7.7 percent.

18 out of 26 EU countries are down, now including all volume markets except the U.K. Greece leads the list of laggards with sales down 47.3 percent. However, the crisis is no longer a southern affair. Second worst country in terms of sales is Finland.

May %Share UnitsUnits% Chg ’12’11’12’1112/11ALL BRANDS** 1,106,8451,211,665-8.7VW Group24.623.8272,157288,701-5.7VOLKSWAGEN12.912.8142,628154,768-7.8AUDI5.75.163,39561,623+2.9SEAT2.12.223,07227,039-14.7SKODA3.93.742,79545,053-5.0Others (1)0.00.0267218+22.5PSA Group12.013.6132,561164,677-19.5PEUGEOT6.57.372,11488,101-18.1CITROEN5.56.360,44776,576-21.1RENAULT Group8.69.094,814109,105-13.1RENAULT6.67.373,36688,099-16.7DACIA1.91.721,44821,006+2.1GM Group8.98.998,873107,885-8.4OPEL/VAUXHALL7.47.781,48992,887-12.3CHEVROLET1.61.217,37114,954+16.2GM (US)0.00.01344-70.5FORD7.68.084,39396,756-12.8FIAT Group7.37.680,58992,166-12.6FIAT5.45.659,43967,549-12.0LANCIA/CHRYSLER0.90.89,6459,605+0.4ALFA ROMEO0.81.08,77912,490-29.7JEEP0.20.22,3571,897+24.2Others (2)0.00.1369625-41.0BMW Group6.46.270,50474,951-5.9BMW5.14.956,88359,044-3.7MINI1.21.313,62115,907-14.4DAIMLER5.25.157,97761,734-6.1MERCEDES4.64.451,10353,843-5.1SMART0.60.76,8747,891-12.9TOYOTA Group3.93.243,33338,506+12.5TOYOTA 3.73.041,30036,624+12.8LEXUS0.20.22,0331,882+8.0NISSAN2.93.231,97938,429-16.8HYUNDAI3.12.734,44832,583+5.7KIA2.81.930,55623,527+29.9VOLVO CAR CORP.1.71.818,38421,801-15.7SUZUKI1.21.113,19213,861-4.8HONDA1.00.810,7589,546+12.7JAGUAR LAND ROVER Group0.80.69,4026,991+34.5LAND ROVER0.70.47,5125,188+44.8JAGUAR0.20.11,8901,803+4.8MAZDA0.70.87,9839,956-19.8MITSUBISHI0.60.86,4099,574-33.1OTHER**0.80.98,53210,916-21.8

Manufacturer-wise, all large European manufacturers are down, led by PSA (-19.5 percent), Renault ( – 13.1 percent), Ford (-12.8 percent) and Fiat (-12.6 percent).

The GM Group is down 8.4 percent. Losses at Opel (-12.3 percent) are offset by a 16.2 percent gain at Chevrolet.

In May, a total of 13 GM cars are listed as imported from the U.S. Following Detroit logic, which postulates that a market must be closed if American cars don’t sell , complaints at the WTO should be imminent.

As predicted yesterday, Volkswagen’s sales are down in Europe. They are down 5.7 percent in May, they are down 2.4 percent January through May. Volkswagen’s data department lists sales as unchanged in May, and up by 1.3 percent January through May. Must be a different Europe.

Data are available here as PDF and here as Excel file.

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.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments
Join the conversation
3 of 6 comments
  • Schmitt trigger Schmitt trigger on Jun 15, 2012

    The Greek elections (re-elctions) are this weekend.... Depending on what or whom you believe on the different doomsday scenarios, a 7.3% drop in sales will be considered wonderful news in the near future.

    • Highdesertcat Highdesertcat on Jun 15, 2012

      To many of the people actually living in Europe those doomsday scenarios may be all too real. I have cousins in their fifties and sixties in Portugal, Germany and England and new car sales are not even on their to-do list. None of them have any plans to buy a new car, or even replace the old ones they have now, regardless of the outcome of the Greek elections. Until the whole of Europe is once again set on the path of the straight and narrow, they will be experiencing even more uncertainty than we currently are experiencing in America. Who cares about buying a new car if you're worried about your housing and food affordability in the future?

  • Mullholland Mullholland on Jun 15, 2012

    Other than JLR the biggest winners seem to be Korean: Hyundai, Kia and Chevrolet.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
Next