Europe sees 9 per cent car growth - JATO

Last year was the second year in a row in terms of positive growth in car sales in Euope, with the increase driven by Spain and Italy and other smaller markets
In 2015 the European car market totalled 14.2 million new registrations, an increase of 9.3% over 2014 full year results; the highest since 2009.

The market benefited from the last two months of double-digit growth with December setting the highest positive monthly change of the last three years at 1.16 million units.

Therefore, the last quarter volume increase was the highest of the year, standing at 10.2% more than in Q4 2014, representing 3.42 million cars sold in total.

The Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate, SAAR, came in at 16.52 million units.

In 2015, nearly all of the markets analysed (27 out of 29) posted a positive registrations increase with only Estonia and Luxembourg falling behind the levels experienced in 2014.

The biggest increases came from Italy and Spain, which together added almost 400,000 units to the year’s total. Spain posted its highest total since 2008, and Italy recorded their best result since 2011. In both cases the totals are still far from the 1.64 million units registered in Spain in 2005 and the 2.51 million seen in Italy in 2007.

Germany topped the overall market with 3.2 million new cars, up by 5.6%, and reaching their highest total since 2009. The UK came second with an all-time record of 2.63 million units (+6.3 per cent), and in France registrations went up by 6.8 per cent to 1.92 million units, the highest since 2011.

Another good annual performance came from Ireland, where registrations were up by 29.7per cent despite a fall in December.

Portugal and the Czech Republic were also up above the 20 per cent mark, and they were followed by 10 other markets who posted double-digit growth.

These included the Netherlands and Poland – up 14.8 per cent and 16.1 per cent respectively, following an outstanding performance during December compared to the previous year.

“Last year was very positive for the industry in terms of growth. Most of the car markets that suffered the most during the European crisis posted the highest annual increases. Even in the case of Greece, its registrations growth rate in 2015 outperformed those seen in the UK and Germany” commented Felipe Munoz, marketing analyst at JATO Dynamics.

Volkswagen led the European market with 1.72 million units and 12.11 per cent market share, but its sales only increased by 7 per cent compared to 2014.

However, despite recent challenges in reality it only lost 0.28 percentage points of market share.

Ford was second, exceeding the million units mark but also lost market share. Renault outsold Opel/Vauxhall to take third place in the rankings during 2015 thanks to its double-digit growth.

The GM brands and Peugeot complete the top 5. The rest of the top 10 was made up of the three German premium brands, with Audi leading the annual total but posting the lowest growth among them.

Fiat and Skoda completed the top 10 - the Italian brand moving further ahead of Skoda.

Outside the top 10 Nissan’s strong performance allowed it to reduce its gap on Toyota, still the largest Japanese make in Europe. However, Toyota’s registrations grew more than Nissan’s during December. Volvo managed to increase its market share up to 2 per cent, and Mazda and Mini posted registrations growth of more than 20 per cent.

Country       Dec YtD_15  Dec YtD_14    % change YtD

Austria           308,555          303,318           +1.7%

Belgium          501,066         482,939            +3.8%

Croatia             34,820          33,311             +4.5%

Cyprus               8,990            7,797             +15.3%

Czech Rep’c     227,474        188,804            +20.5%

Denmark         207,576         188,929             +9.9%

Estonia             21,033           21,135              -0.5%

Finland            108,786        106,179             +2.5%

France          1,916,642      1,794,579             +6.8%

Germany       3,206,042      3,036,773            +5.6%

Great Britain  2,633,503      2,476,435             +6.3%

Greece              75,502           70,845             +6.6%

Hungary            77,362           67,998           +13.8%

Ireland             124,947         96,338            +29.7%

Italy              1,582,271      1,369,026           +15.6%

Latvia                13,766          12,452            +10.6%

Lithuania            17,071          14,461            +18.0%

Luxembourg       46,473           49,793              -6.7%

Norway            152,630         145,948              +4.6%

Poland              354,037         304,871           +16.1%

Portugal            178,566         142,867            +25.0%

Romania             81,162           70,172            +15.7%

Serbia                 20,004          18,099             +10.5%

Slovakia              77,302          70,569               +9.5%

Slovenia              59,450           53,296             +11.5%

Spain              1,047,852         868,999             +20.6%

Sweden             345,108         303,948             +13.5%

Switzerland        321,238         300,050              +7.1%

The Netherlands 451,844         393,544              +14.8%

Grand Total    14,201,072      12,993,475           +9.3% 




  

Make                     Dec YtD_15     Dec YtD_14   % change YtD

VOLKSWAGEN       1,720,045        1,609,850            +6.8%

RENAULT             974,054          875,354          +11.3%

FORD                   1,040,979           962,825            +8.1%

PEUGEOT                854,128           783,319            +9.0%

OPEL/VAUXHALL      939,698           885,847            +6.1%

BMW                      746,297           673,760           +10.8%

MERCEDES            741,871           658,089           +12.7%

AUDI                      766,504           724,652             +5.8%

FIAT                       654,927           585,751           +11.8%

TOYOTA                  560,911           529,204            +6.0%             

Make & Model       Dec YtD_15      Dec YtD_14  % change YtD

VOLKSWAGEN GOLF   533,584         516,265             +3.4%

RENAULT CLIO           305,305         301,018             +1.4%

PEUGEOT 308             214,907         162,337            +32.4%

VOLKSWAGEN POLO    302,817         280,581            +7.9%

FORD FIESTA              314,432         309,120            +1.7%

VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT 228,113         153,238           +48.9%