February EU New Car Registrations Up 3%

European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association figures show that new car registrations over all European Union countries (excluding Cyprus and Malta, whose data was “unavailable”) rose 3 per cent in February 2010, compared with February 2009. A total of 974,346 new cars were registered in the covered territories. Compared to figures at the same stage of 2009 the small rise in February registrations means that there are 7.9 per cent more new cars on the EU’s roads in 2010. However, given that 2009 was a year in which financial turmoil prevailed, the evidence suggests that this rise has only partially eaten into the drop experienced from 2008; compared to figures recorded in that year, February 2010 has seen 15 per cent fewer registrations and 16 per cent fewer in cumulative year-to-date numbers. Spain, the UK, Italy and France all registered significant increases, while Germany, Romania, Hungary and Poland saw dramatic drops. In the same region, Renault Group, PSA Group (Peugeot and Citroen), Nissan and Kia were the manufacturers with notable increases, while Toyota Group saw a significant drop.

Returning to the EU-wide figures, the proportional rise in new car registrations shows that monthly year-on-year gains have slowed to that experienced in summer 2009, when scrappage schemes in the segment’s major territories began to give noticeable boosts to car sales. The proportional monthly comparison increases peaked in November, when 26.9 per cent more cars were registered compared to that month in 2008 (when the credit crunch had started seriously to affect car sales), and has seen a downward trend in growth in the months since – perhaps heralded by the winding up of schemes in major territories. While the EU has registered 7.9 per cent more cars in the first two months of 2010 than in 2009, it is distinctly possible that the purchases instigated by such initiatives could now be missing from the remainder of 2010; a factor widely predicted when the UK scrappage scheme was introduced. Looking at the downward trend in growth, it would not be unreasonable to believe that purchases may have been brought forward to create an artificial bump in figures recorded between June 2009 and February 2010, leading to a dip akin to that seen between October 2008 and May 2009 later this year.

To return to current figures, the ACEA states that “EU has registered 2,033,753 new passenger cars in January-February 2010. In absolute figures, Italy registered the most vehicles (407,580 units), followed by Germany (376,035 units), France (352,013 units), the UK (214,165 units) and Spain (161,411 units). Germany was the only larger market to contract (-19.5 per cent) from January to February, while the market expanded by 16.3 per cent in France, 25.5% in Italy, 28.7% in the UK and 32.9% in Spain.” These results varied wildly by market in year-on-year monthly comparisons too, with Germany registering 29.8 per cent fewer February registrations than in 2009, while Spain (up 47 per cent), the UK (26.4), Italy (20.6) and France (18.2) all registering significant increases.

While the 3 per cent overall rise in February registrations is somewhat heartening news, it is worth mentioning that the new passenger car market is still some way short of its relatively stable position over most of the first decade of the 21st century. February 2008 represented a peak in the market volume, in which approximately 1.15 million new cars were registered, while February 2009 saw the most significant change as 17.9 per cent disappeared from the market.