According to car manufacturers' association CCFA, French passenger cars haven't had a lucky fate in December last year as the number of sales fell 15.8%, Autonews reported (via Reuters). In addition, the last month of 2008 has brought a 23.5 percent fall in the the French passenger car market, only 153,692 new passenger cars being registered, the CCFA said.
Yet, the annual picture is not as gloomy as last month as new passenger car registrations fell just 0.7 percent, with 2,050,289 vehicles registered.
As for light passenger and utility vehicle, December sales dropped as well with 15.9 percent, while 2008 sales for the same category fell with 0.6 percent.
More importantly, French cars have had an even worse fate in Spain where sales fell almost 50% in December and 28 percent for the year as a whole, Spanish industry group ANFAC said.
Even France's biggest automaker PSA/Peugeot-Citroen is passing through hard times with sales dropping by 0.9 per cent in December. Sales for Peugeot vehicles dropped by 6.6 percent, while Citroen cars decreased with 6.3 percent. Renault has sold with 19.9 percent less cars in December than in the previous months. That means sales for Renault brand vehicles fell 22.4 percent and Dacia brand cars down 0.6 percent.
These numbers bring the title of the second and third biggest fallers on the CAC-40 in 2008, Renault losing 80.9 percent and Peugeot 76.6 percent.
Nevertheless, France is not the only country that is feeling the decline in sales. Actually, Italy, Spain and Belgium share a similar destiny if we are to judge after their data for the last month of 2008. To be more specific, Italy which by the way is Europe's four biggest market after France, Germany and the UK, announced a 13.3 percent decrease for December sales.
Oh well, as far as they don't go bankrupt, the situation could be under control...
Google News