Europe In March 2011. Down 5 Percent
In March, 1,558,915 new cars were registered in the EU. That is 5.0 percent less than in March last year. For the first quarter, demand for new cars was down 2.3 percent, with 3,583,185 units registered.
March results were a mixed bag in the EU. France (+6.1 percent) and Germany (+11.4 percent) posted growth while the UK (-7.9 percent), Italy (-27.6 percent) and Spain (-29.1 percent) faced a downturn. Full data can be found here as PDF and here as Excel spreadsheet.
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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Good information. To try and balance some of the pro-Toyota posts today I would like to point out that GM increased market share in the past year and sells twice as many cars as Toyota/Lexus. Well done for GM (and Ford) for outselling Toyota. Some people seem to think US sales are the most important metric in determining who does best.
Fiat, Ford and Renault have each dropped more than a percentage point of market share. They have made statements about not discounting, it will be interesting to see their Q1 financials for Europe to see whether they have profitability to make for the loss of market share.