Photo: Dacia
We had heard about the dreaded 19-year low which was expected to hit the European car sales sector in 2012, and since all the industry news we have recently posted about the Old Continent have been negative for the most part, the conclusion was inevitable.
Numerous austerity measures, an acute lack of money, even in the more developed states from the west of the continent, have made us arrive at this grim conclusion. Numbers for the first eleven months of the year are down 7.2%, to around 11.7-million units, which is the lowest recorded figure since 1993.
November was a bad month, as well, as sales fell by 10%, to 965,918, despite the fact that some manufacturers still recorded increases in sales and profits. In fact, there was just one manufacturer who posted positive numbers - Hyundai, which recorded a 7% increase in sales, while their sister brand Kia noticed a 3.6% drop in sales.
Most worrying of all are the numbers posted by Renault and Dacia, with a combined 27.4% decrease in sales, while PSA Peugeot-Citroen did not do too well, either, with sales down 16%. GM’s most prominent brands in Europe, Opel, Vauxhall and Chevrolet saw a combined decline of 13%, while Fiat went down 12.8% and Ford 10.2%.
The numbers come from ACEA, and include the 27 European Union member states, as well as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
According to Erich Hauser, a London analyst at Credit Suisse: "The key here is not how bad 2012 is but whether there can be a realistic hope that 2013 will improve [ . . . ] We see little reason to believe that EU volumes will grow next year, which means that the spread between EU-focused and export-oriented original equipment manufacturers will only continue to widen."
Numerous austerity measures, an acute lack of money, even in the more developed states from the west of the continent, have made us arrive at this grim conclusion. Numbers for the first eleven months of the year are down 7.2%, to around 11.7-million units, which is the lowest recorded figure since 1993.
November was a bad month, as well, as sales fell by 10%, to 965,918, despite the fact that some manufacturers still recorded increases in sales and profits. In fact, there was just one manufacturer who posted positive numbers - Hyundai, which recorded a 7% increase in sales, while their sister brand Kia noticed a 3.6% drop in sales.
Most worrying of all are the numbers posted by Renault and Dacia, with a combined 27.4% decrease in sales, while PSA Peugeot-Citroen did not do too well, either, with sales down 16%. GM’s most prominent brands in Europe, Opel, Vauxhall and Chevrolet saw a combined decline of 13%, while Fiat went down 12.8% and Ford 10.2%.
The numbers come from ACEA, and include the 27 European Union member states, as well as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
According to Erich Hauser, a London analyst at Credit Suisse: "The key here is not how bad 2012 is but whether there can be a realistic hope that 2013 will improve [ . . . ] We see little reason to believe that EU volumes will grow next year, which means that the spread between EU-focused and export-oriented original equipment manufacturers will only continue to widen."
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