European sales keep rising

The European car market grew in April for the 32nd consecutive month, official figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association confirm.

And while Volkswagen’s unresolved emissions-cheating scandal continues to cost it customers, it has retained its position as Europe’s market with year-on-year sales growth, though it has lost about one percent of its market share.

The continent soaked up 1,273,733 new cars in April, up 9.1 percent over the same month in 2015 and the highest April volume since 2008, just before the financial crisis crunched sales.

Once moribund economies lead the way in sales, with Spain up 21.2 per cent and Italy 11.5 per cent, while there were strong contributions from Germany (8.4 per cent), France (7.1 per cent) and the UK (two per cent).

The strong April takes the year-to-date total beyond five million cars (5,094,026)

Lower volume countries showed some astonishing sales spikes, with Iceland’s April sale jumping 74.2 per cent over its 2015 figure, Cyprus jumping 75.2 per cent, Croatia up 27.2 per cent, Greece rising 24.8 per cent, Poland up 21 per cent and Hungary up 19.7 per cent.

The only market in Europe to contract in April 2016 was Switzerland, which was off a single per cent. Year-to-date, Switzerland’s 0.6 per cent contraction was dwarfed by the 7.6 per cent shrink in The Netherlands, largely caused by the high-tax country easing back on electric-car subsidies.

Germany continued to be by far the biggest market in Europe, with 315,921 cars sold in April, followed by the UK (189,505), France (182,863), Italy (166,966) and Spain (100,281).

Germany is also the only carmaker this year to have passed the million-car mark, with 1,107,345 so far, followed by the UK (961,285), France (699,245), Italy (687,021) and Spain (385,775).

In spite of its troubles, the Volkswagen Group is still by far the largest seller in Europe, shifting more than double the cars of nearest rival PSA (Peugeot, Citroen and DS).

The Volkswagen Group delivered 1,209,963 cars to the end of April this year, compared to PSA’s 532,847. The Renault Group (not including Nissan) ranked third with 489,086 cars, followed by the one-brand group, Ford (369,045), and FCA (349,772).

The Volkswagen brand is also still the biggest in the EU, with 572,654 cars sold compared to Ford’s 369,045 and Renault’s 351,694, with the rest of the top five filled by Opel (346,277) and Peugeot (308,896).

Audi clearly headed the premium segment, and its 284,471 cars sold to the end of April even landed it sixth overall. To demonstrate the strength in Europe of the premium brands, though, only Fiat (266,005) separated Audi from Mercedes-Benz (264,554) and BMW (261,651).

The biggest-selling Asian brand was Toyota, which ranked 11th after selling 201,609 cars to the end of April.

Jaguar’s XE mid-sizer has so far proven a success, with the once-modest premium brand leading Europe’s growth figures for 2016 at 110.4 percent over its 2015 sales.

Honda (32.6 per cent), Mazda (28.9 per cent), Jeep (24.6 per cent) and Land Rover (21.3 per cent) also boomed.

It wasn’t good news for everybody, though, with deeply troubled Mitsubishi down 7.2 per cent so far this year, the combined figures of Maserati and Dodge (which is how FCA chooses to list them) down 5.6 per cent, PSA’s premium DS brand down 2.8 per cent, Seat off 2.1 per cent and Nissan missing the volume-brand feast by dropping off 1.6 per cent.