UK, European new car registrations dip in April

Demand for new cars declined in most European markets during April, with new registrations down 4.1 per cent year-on-year. The UK market drop was even more pronounced, with 7.4 per cent fewer registrations than in April 2010; France suffered an 11.1 per cent year-on-year decline while 23.3 per cent fewer cars were registered in Spain. The only major market to buck this downward trend was Germany, where 2.6 per cent more new registrations were reported in April 2011. In all, 1,089,118 new passenger cars were registered in the EU (including Romania and Bulgaria; data for Malta and Cyprus is currently not available); around one eighth of these were registered in the UK, which recorded a total of 137,746 new vehicles for the month.