Berlin - European car sales fell in April as the shift of Easter
from March reduced buyers’ time for shopping, while registrations in the UK
were further sapped by tax changes.
With at least two fewer selling days compared with a year
ago, industry wide registrations dropped 6.8 percent to 1.23 million vehicles
last month, according to the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’
Association, or ACEA. Regional leader Volkswagen AG and fifth-ranked Ford Motor
Co. lost market share to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Renault SA, which are
attracting customers with sport utility vehicles.
Sales plunged 20 percent in the UK after a new
vehicle-excise duty went into effect on April 1. That could set the stage for
further drops in demand amid the fallout from Britain’s preparations to exit
the European Union, including a declining pound.
“Further weaker results are expected in the UK through this
year, as the economy slows down, car-price rises feed through and the market
eases back from a cyclically strong period,” Jonathon Poskitt, an analyst at
LMC Automotive in Oxford, England, said in a report.
Car-sales growth is about to slow after three years of
consecutive gains, as many consumers have already bought new autos and buyers
in the UK, Europe’s second-biggest market, begin to feel Brexit’s economic
pinch. The Easter holiday’s move into April this year hurt the annual
comparison because dealerships had less business.
Confidence Rises
European car deliveries rose to a nine-year high in 2016, as
the market recovered from a two-decade low hit in 2013. Despite April’s poor
performance, sales are set to inch higher again in 2017, albeit at a slower
pace.
Demand is likely to pick up after economic confidence in
countries using the euro jumped to the highest in almost a decade in April, signalling
more consumers spending in coming months.
“The latest car-market results come in contrast to the solid
economic news from the region,” Poskitt said. “We would assume the selling rate
will pick up in the next few months from the weak April result.”
Volkswagen’s group European sales fell 9 percent, narrowing
the German company’s market share to 24.8 percent from 25.4 percent a year
earlier, as demand at the namesake VW brand as well as the Audi and Porsche
marques dropped by more than 10 percent.
Ford’s registrations in the region slid 12 percent, while
Opel and Vauxhall, the European nameplates that General Motors Co. is selling
to French competitor PSA Group, posted a 13 percent plunge.
Among the top 10 carmakers in Europe, only Toyota Motor
Corp., which ranks ninth, posted a sales gain last month. Renault, which makes
the Kadjar and Captur SUVs, widened its market share to 10.6 percent from 10.1
percent a year earlier, even with a 2.9 percent slide in demand.
Read also: Car prices rising, but not all bad news
Fiat Chrysler accounted for 7.3 percent of the European
market, versus 6.8 percent in the 2016 period, as a 52 percent surge at the
Alfa Romeo brand following the rollout of its Stelvio SUV partly countered
declines at the Fiat and Jeep nameplates.
Sales in Germany, Europe’s biggest market, dropped 8
percent, while declining 4.6 percent in Italy and 6 percent in France. The ACEA
compiles numbers from the EU’s 28 member countries, excluding Malta, plus
Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
LMC predicts western European auto sales will rise 2.4
percent in 2017, compared with a 3.7 percent gain through the first four months
of the year. Deliveries are unlikely to pass the 2007 peak anytime soon as
Europeans increasingly opt for car-sharing and other alternatives to vehicle
ownership.