UK new car sales up, European sales continue fall

UK new car sales up, European sales continue fall

Whilst new car registrations in Europe have been falling every month for the past year and a half, the UK is resisting this trend and seeing steady growth.

For the last 18 months in a row, new registrations in Europe has been consistently falling, with a 10.2% fall in March alone. However, this is not so in the UK, which has seen new car sales grow for each of the past 13 months, and saw a growth of 5.9% in new car registrations in March. Indeed, European auto industry body Acea have stated they believe that 2012 was the worst year for European auto sales since 1995, and that 2013 is looking to be worse.

Falls have been seen in all the major European nations last month. France's sales are down by 16.2%, Italy's by 4.9, Spain's by 13.9%, and Germany, typically thought of as the market leader in auto sales, saw a fall of 17%.

Car manufacturers have had mixed fortunes regarding their sales in the last quarter of this year. Dacia, Honda, Kia, Jaguar and Land Rover all saw rises in sales, with Jaguar seeing an increase of 21.5% alone. However, the losers have been Chevrolet, Mitsubishi, Chrysler, Ford, Lexus and Alfa Romeo, with Lexus faring the worst, with a drop of 37.5% in sales.

With more and more people in Europe holding on to older cars with the lingering financial uncertainty in the Eurozone, it looks like 2013 could be a bad year for European car sales.

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