Eastern Europe Sales, Still No Recovery

Despite the apparent signs of recovery coming from most of the world, at least as far as the automotive industry is concerned, parts of the Old Continent are still to see the light at the end of the tunnel. According to JATO Dynamics, Central and Eastern Europe are still far from showing signs of recovery.

“Eastern Europe is suffering far more than Western markets,” David Di Girolamo, JATO Consult chief said. “Of course, the worrying thing here, for Western Europe, is it reveals the ‘true’ level of demand for new cars, when the cushioning effect of scrappage and other incentives is removed.”

The scrappage schemes are seen by JATO as being essential to the survival of the respective markets. The perceivable recovery seen in the West is mostly owed to these incentives.

To put numbers behind words, JATO calculates that in Q3, 213,086 cars were sold in Central-Eastern Europe, 32 percent less than in the same period of 2009. The largest market of the region remains Poland, which, alongside Slovakia, is the single country to have posted a rise in sales compared to Q3 2008.

Hungary took the steepest dip in Q3, as it's new car sales crashed by 74.7 percent, meaning the country only sold 9,689 units. Among the reasons for the drop, JATO says, in the introduction of the new VAT value of 25 percent.

As for manufacturers, the automotive data provider says Fiat is the only one to have posted an increase, but didn't provide any numbers for this part of Europe.