Passenger Car Registrations Up in September

European passenger car registrations in September received a boost from markets with government sponsored scrappage schemes in place, particular those countries where the schemes are winding up. The whole European market rose 6.6 per cent and the Western European by 9.6 per cent during the month compared with September 2008, the largest leap since 1999. In absolute figures, however, September 2009 registrations stayed below the levels reached since 2002.

Germany showed the strongest sales increase at 21.0 per cent – indeed, when Germany’s new car registrations are taken out of the occasion, Western European registrations only grew by 6.4 per cent. A respectable 11.4 per cent increase was also recorded in the UK, where 367,929 vehicles were sold during the month. Spain, Austria and France also enjoyed double-digit sales growth in September, with respective increases of 18.0, 17.9, and 14.0 per cent were recorded.

The nine months to the end of September 2009 were not such happy days for the industry. Passenger car registrations sank in most markets – in Western Europe only Germany, Austria and France recorded a growth in passenger car registrations during this time period. Registrations in the UK dropped 15.5 per cent over the 2008 result during the nine months, with a total of 1,517,039 cars sold.