Passenger car registrations: -7.1% over eight months; -8.9% in August

Brussels, 18/09/2012 –After declining by 7.8% in July, new passenger car registrations were down by 8.9% in August. Eight months into the year, the downturn reached 7.1% as the EU* registered 8,268,642 new cars. July results were negative across countries, except in the UK where the market expanded by 9.3%, totaling 143,884 new registrations. Elsewhere, the downturn ranged from -5.0% in Germany to -0.7% in France, -17.2% in Spain and -21.0% in Italy. A total of 935,368 new registrations was recorded in the EU*, or 7.8% less than in the same month a year earlier.

In August, EU* markets performed diversely. Germany saw its demand contract by 4.7%, while France (-11.4%) and Italy (-20.2%) faced double-digit downturns. The Spanish (+3.4%) expanded and the British remained stable.

From January to August, the UK was the only market to post growth (+3.3%), while Germany slipped by 0.6% and Spain (-8.5%), France (-13.4%) and Italy (-19.9%) recorded negative figures.