Passenger car: registrations slip 0.8% in January-May

Brussels, 17/06/2011 – In May, new passenger car registrations increased by 7.1% in the EU*, bringing total registrations from January to May to 0.8% below those in the same period in 2010. Since March 2010, when demand for new cars was up 11.0%, only the month of February had been positive (+0.9%). Up to May, a total of 5,885,631 new cars was registered.

In May, a total of 1,208,583 new cars was registered in the EU*. Registrations were up in Germany (+22.0%), France (+6.1%) and Italy (+3.6%), while the market contracted by 23.3% in Spain and 1.7% in the UK. Overall, most countries saw their demand for cars increase, leading to a 7.1% growth across the EU*.

Five months into the year, although a majority of EU markets expanded, important ones such as the British (-7.3%), Italian (-15.1%) and Spanish (-25.7%) contracted, leading to an overall 0.8% downturn. In absolute figures, Germany and France registered over a million vehicles from January to May, followed by the UK and Italy, with over 840,000 units.