In November, new car sales in Europe increased by 1 percent to 989,457 vehicles, according to data provided by ACEA, the automotive industry association. It was the 15th consecutive month that registrations rose – but things are still far from rosy.
In spite of the first 11 months of the year’s increase by 6 percent, to 12 million units, compared to 2013, experts are very cagey. “It’s not very dynamic”, Thomas Besson, an auto analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux told Autonews. “We’ll probably have growth of around 5 percent in 2014, which is higher than what was expected at the start of the year, but it’s no party time.”
It’s interesting to note that both budget and luxury brands led the market. For example, Renault-owned Dacia posted an 11 percent increase last month, raising the group’s total sales by 4 percent. Likewise, VW’s Seat brand boosted the German group’s sales by 3 percent after its sales rose by 10 percent.
On the other end of the spectrum, premium brands sales were most certainly not affected by the economic crisis. BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Volvo saw their November sales increase by 9, 10, 4 and 9 percent respectively.
Even so, things are not likely to improve much next year. “The UK is reaching a ceiling, growth is slowing down in France and Germany and Italy is slowly coming back: this isn’t a great cocktail for 2015”, commented UBS analyst Philippe Houchouis, adding that “there is still a lack of buyers.”
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