Passenger car registrations: -1.6% nine months into 2019; +14.5% in September

In September 2019, EU demand for new passenger cars increased by 14.5% to reach 1.2 million units registered in total. To a large extent, this strong year-on-year growth is the result of a low base of comparison, as registrations fell significantly in September 2018 (-23.5%) following the introduction of the WLTP testing regime.

Last month, all EU member states posted increases, except for Bulgaria. Four of the five major EU markets even recorded double-digit gains: Germany (+22.2%), Spain (+18.3%), France (+16.6%) and Italy (+13.4%). By contrast, in the United Kingdom market recovery was very limited (+1.3%), as Brexit-related uncertainties continued to affect consumer confidence.

Over the first nine months of 2019, new car registrations were down 1.6% compared to the same period the year before. Despite demand recovering across the European Union in September, Germany (+2.5%) was the only major market to post positive results so far this year. Spain (-7.4%) saw the strongest drop, followed by the United Kingdom (-2.5%), Italy (-1.6%) and France (-1.3%).