European car sales recovery continues

JATO Dynamics has released its monthly European new car market analysis for August 2009, showing that the ‘Big 5’ European car markets of Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain and Spain all sold more cars in August 2009 than they did in the same month last year. Of those five markets, Spain is the last to eventually demonstrate a month of growth in 2009, with a marginal 0.7% improvement over August 2008.

“We are not by any means seeing a complete market recovery, but with the five biggest markets now all heading in the right direction, we can certainly feel very encouraged”, says David Di Girolamo, Head of JATO Consult. “The holiday period during August always sees lower volumes sold, but at least the August figures continue the European trend towards improved sales, and although the overall year-to-date figure remains down by 7.3%, we have seen a 1.2% improvement over July.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Volkswagen Golf remains Europe’s best-selling car, now celebrating its fifth consecutive month at the top of the charts, up 17.3% YTD and 39.5% in August.

Ford’s Fiesta continues as Europe’s second best-selling model, up 36.9% YTD and 33.3% in August. The rest of the top ten running order sees some significant changes over last month, with the Opel/Vauxhall Corsa up from fifth place in July third place in August (up 15.9% for the month), the Peugeot 207 is down from third to fourth (up 1.2%) and the Renault Clio has climbed from ninth to fifth position (up 2.5%). In the lower half of the top ten, the Ford Focus remains in sixth position (down 5.3%), the Fiat Punto has slid from fourth to seventh in the chart, despite being up 45.7% for the month, the Skoda Fabia re-enters the top ten in eighth position (up 3.9%), the Fiat Panda drops from eighth to ninth (up 37.2%) and the Opel/Vauxhall Astra drops from seventh to tenth (down 1.1%).

August is a traditionally quiet month for car sales thanks to the established holiday period across the continent, so sales volumes are substantially less in many markets in the region. With the five major European markets performing well, the YtD decline has reduced by a further 1.2% over that recorded up to July, although many markets are still significantly down on their 2008 figures.