September EU car registrations – UK bucks downward trend

New car registration figures for the EU from ACEA show that demand for new cars was down -10.8% in September, amounting to 1,099,264 units, compared with September 2011. Nine months into the year, the downturn reached -7.6%, with a total of 9,368,327 new cars registered in the EU.

Looking at the major markets, the British was the only one to expand, while Germany (-10.9%), France (-17.9%), Italy (-25.7%) and Spain (-36.8%) all faced a double-digit downturn. 

From January to September, the EU market shrank by -7.6%, compared to the first nine months of 2011. Results were diverse across markets, as the UK posted growth (+4.3%), while Germany saw its demand fall by -1.8% and Spain (-11.0%), France (-13.8%) and Italy (-20.5%) contracted more severely.