ACEA

PASSENGER CARS: registrations up 3.0% in February

Brussels, 16/03/2010 - New passenger car registrations in the EU* increased by 3.0% in February, and by 7.9% over the first two months of the year, compared to the same period in 2009. With the same average number of working days across the region in February, no calendar effect occurred. Compared to the pre-crisis levels of February and January-February 2008, new car registrations decreased by 15% and 16% respectively.

In February, a total of 974,346 new cars were registered in Europe*, or 3.0% more than in February 2009. A decrease in Europe’s second largest market Germany (-29.8%), was countered by an increase in the other major markets. Under the continued influence of government fleet renewal incentives, France recorded 18.2% more registrations in February, Italy +20.6%, the UK +26.4% and Spain +47.0%. Romania, Hungary and Poland saw registrations decrease by 63.0%, 57.9% and 19.2%.
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Two months into the year, the EU registered 2,033,753 new passenger cars, or 7.9% more than in the same period a year ago. In absolute figures, Italy registered the most vehicles (407,580 units), followed by Germany (376,035 units), France (352,013 units), the UK (214,165 units) and Spain (161,411 units). Germany was the only larger market to contract (-19.5%) from January to February. The market expanded by 16.3% in France, 25.5% in Italy, 28.7% in the UK and 32.9% in Spain.

* EU27, data for Cyprus and Malta unavailable

NB: Commencing with the January 2010 new passenger car registrations figures, the ACEA data sheets will provide new vehicle registrations in alphabetical order for the countries of the European Union, and no longer separate for Western-Europe (15) and new EU Member States (10)*. Results for the EFTA countries will continue to be reported separately. The monthly press releases will quote the ‘EU’ figures first, followed by the ‘total Europe’ figures, adding up the EU and EFTA figures.

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