Results from the international automotive markets showed wide variations in September. While sales in Europe (EU-28 and EFTA) enjoyed double-digit growth, sales slumped in the US. China, India and Russia also recorded falling figures. By contrast, Japan and Brazil expanded.
The European passenger car market added 14 percent in September, reaching 1.3 million vehicles. Following the WLTP-related bottlenecks last year, the full availability of the models is now boosting the market. The five largest national European markets all increased in September 2019. Germany recorded the strongest growth (+22 percent). Double-digit expansion was also seen in France (+17 percent), Italy (+13 percent) and Spain (+18 percent). The British market grew by 1 percent. After the first nine months of 2019, the European passenger car market has a volume of 12.1 million vehicles (-2 percent).
In the US, sales of light vehicles (passenger cars and light trucks) decreased in September (as the month had two trading days less) by 11 percent to 1.3 million vehicles. The trend to light trucks continued, taking their proportion of all light vehicle sales to 73 percent. Year-to-date sales of light vehicles in the US total 12.7 million (-1 percent).
The Chinese passenger car market contracted once again last month. Its volume came to 1.9 million vehicles, which was 6 percent below last year’s level. During the first nine months of the current year, a total of 15.0 million cars were sold – a fall of 12 percent.
On the Indian market, passenger car sales lost 24 percent and were down to 223,300 in September. One of the main reasons was the crisis in the shadow bank sector that provides finance for a large proportion of new vehicle purchases. Since January 2.2 million passenger cars have been sold, i.e. 16 percent less than in the same period last year.
Passenger car sales in Japan rose by 14 percent (458,900 units) in September. So far this year, car sales have increased slightly – to 3.4 million new vehicles (+2 percent).
Last month the Russian light vehicle market hovered around its 2018 level (157,100 vehicles). Since the beginning of the year 1.3 million new vehicles have been sold, which is 2 percent down on last year.
Brazil’s light vehicle market grew by 9 percent in September to a volume of 224,000 new vehicles. Sales since January this year amount to 1.9 million units, i.e. 9 percent above last year’s level.
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SOURCE: VDA
