EU car sales grew strongly in May

ERJ staff report (DS)

Brussels -- New data from ACEA, the European vehicle makers federation, shows that new passenger car registrations increased by 7.1 percent in the EU in May, bringing total registrations from January to May to 0.8 percent below those in the same period in 2010. Since March 2010, when demand for new cars was up 11.0 percent, only the month of February had been positive (+0.9 percent). Up to May, 5,885,631 new cars were registered.

Five months into the year, although a majority of EU markets expanded, important ones such as the British

(-7.3 percent), Italian (-15.1 percent) and Spanish (-25.7 percent) contracted, leading to an overall 0.8 percent downturn. In absolute figures, Germany and France registered over a million vehicles from January to May, followed by the UK and Italy, with over 840,000 units.

In May, a total of 1,208,583 new cars was registered in the EU. Registrations were up in Germany (+22.0 percent), France (+6.1 percent) and Italy (+3.6 percent), while the market contracted by 23.3 percent in Spain and 1.7 percent in the UK. Overall, most countries saw their demand for cars increase, leading to a 7.1 percent growth across the EU.

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Press release from ACEA