Europe In October: Clawing Back To Normal
In October 2008, new car sales in carpocalypse-affected Europe had dropped by 14.4 percent. A year later, the Old Country is slowly coming back to normal. In Europe as a whole, new car registrations grew by 11.2 percent over October in the previous year. This according to the latest statistic of the European Auto Manufacturers Association ACEA. Since losses turned into gains in July, this is the first time Europe comes in with double digit growth. However, not all is rosy.
While the Western Europe market grew by 15.8 percent in October, sales in the new EU Member States in the East dropped by 36.9 percent. Not quite coincidentally, nearly all countries in the West had cash-for-clunker programs, which are mostly missing in the East.
From January to October, registrations are still behind by 5 percent, with 12.2m units sold in all of Europe. Led by Germany (+ 24.1 percent), all large Western European markets registered double digit growth rates. Former basket case Spain has made a remarkable comeback with 26.4 percent growth. In the new EU Member States, the Czech Republic was the only country to post growth (+8.8 percent). Elsewhere in the East, the downturn ranged from 8.4 percent (Poland) to 81.6 percent (Latvia). The full report is available as PDF and in the Excel format for your number crunching pleasure.
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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Interesting. Aren't most, or all, of the European governmental car scrapping incentives over now? It seems that sales continue to improve and that the worries of a massive "post-intervention" sales crater (Edmunds-esque) may just have been a bit overstated.