April brings sharp increases in new registrations, production and exports
In April 2016, new registrations of passenger cars in Germany rose by 8 percent to 315,900 units. However, the month had one more working day than April last year. This year’s accumulated result is up by 6 percent, totaling 1.1 million passenger cars. Therefore more new cars were registered in the first four months of 2016 than in any year since 2009.
Matthias Wissmann, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), commented: “The April result should be seen against the backdrop of the weaker figures in March. Taking the months of March and April together reveals a balanced picture. Then the growth comes to four percent.”
In view of the keen development so far this year, the VDA is now raising its original forecast (+1 percent) for the German passenger car market. “For the year 2016 as a whole we expect sales of 3.3 million passenger cars, which is a rise of 3 percent,” Wissmann said.
April orders from Germany were a good 2 percent up on the previous year. The first four months of 2016 showed year-on-year growth of just over 1 percent.
Domestic passenger car production and exports both benefited from the extra working day. In April production in Germany climbed by 14 percent to 546,500 units. This means that more than 2 million vehicles have been built here since January (+3 percent).
Exports of new cars increased by 13 percent last month (to 414,600 units). The year-to-date result matches that from the same period in 2015.
Orders arriving from abroad fell by 3 percent in April but showed a small increase (+1 percent) over the first four months of the year.
