New car registrations in the European Union rose for the third
consecutive month in November, as the demand for cars in the region
continued to recover from the low levels not seen since the early
1990s.
November new car registrations, a mirror of sales, rose 1.2%
from a year earlier to 938,021, the European Automobile
Manufacturers' Association said Tuesday. The overall figure
compares with October registrations of about 1 million.
The recovery in demand is providing much needed relief for some
of Europe's auto makers, which were hit by consumer reluctance to
buy new cars amid economic uncertainty and rising unemployment in
many countries due to the sovereign debt crisis.
At the same time, the European car industry continues to suffer
from overcapacity and demand has fallen from a peak in 2007. New
car registrations in the 11 months to November this year were 10.95
million, well below 14.8 million in the same period six years ago.
Auto makers like France's PSA Peugeot Citroen and the European
operations of Italy's Fiat SpA, as well as Ford Motor Co. and
General Motors Co., are set to rack up heavy losses this year with
many of their factories operating below full capacity.
Among the volume manufacturers, Fiat's European Union
registrations fell 5.8% in November and Renault rose 9.9%.
Registrations for General Motors, which said last month that it
will pull its Chevy vehicles from Europe by 2016 due to low market
share, fell 3.7%. Of that, Opel was down 2.9% and Chevy dropped
8.7%.
Volkswagen's maintained its dominance of the European market,
with market share rising to 26.2% from 25.6% a year ago. The
group's registrations rose 3.3% in November. Of that total,
registrations of Volkswagen's premium brand Audi were down
3.2%.
Among the German car makers, Daimler AG registrations declined
1.7% while BMW AG registrations fell 6.8%.
Regionally, the strongest gains were in Greece and the
Netherlands. In Germany, the EU's largest single car market,
registrations fell 2.0% in November. Registrations in the U.K. rose
7.0%, and registrations in France were down 4.0%, the trade group
said.
Write to Sarah Sloat at sarah.sloat@dowjones.com
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