Germany In April 2013: Is This The Turn-Around?
Germany’s new car sales were up 3.8 percent in April, says Germany’s Kraftfahrtbundesamt. This is the first time in nearly a year that German car sales were in plus territory. In France, an April loss of 5.2 percent already was feted as the turn-around. Has the European bottom been reached? I don’t think so.
Just like most of Europe, Germany had been down very hard in March. My contacts in the Fatherland say that most of what we see is a calendar effect. Easter Sunday was on March 31 this year, and many in Europe took the week off. In the Year before, Easter Sunday was on April 8, and many were on vacation in the first week of April. All considered, March probably wasn’t as bad, and April not as good as it looks.
Strongest gainer of the German brands was Porsche, up 16 percent. All German brands, including Opel and Ford (which are counted as German by the Germans) are up, except for BMW (-10,2 %), Mini (-18.3 %) and Smart (-12.1 %).
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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YTD Hyundai and Kia has sold as much as Toyota, Nissan and Honda combined in Germany.
The Europeans don't really have a thing for Japanese cars (most of them anyway) like the people in the US do. OTOH I don't think Germans 'commute' as much as Americans do. The Europeans I know all love German cars. And I have to admit for the most part they are correct - if you get the ones made in Germany they seem to be pretty excellent. It's actually pretty embarrasing being an American that both the US automakers so soured the American populace during the malaise era that anyone born in the 50s and 60s hates american cars - and at the same time so many Americans won't touch anything but a Japanese car - seemingly believing that they will all blow up at some random time in a puff of smoke.. Part of the problem for US automakers is that so many people don't know how to turn a wrench anymore. So they can't evaluate cars on anything besides reputation. If you don't know how something works you become very reliant upon opinion.. So you have to win people back via word of mouth and reputation. That can take forever..