New car sales in Europe rose 9.6 percent in April over a year ago despite financial turmoil and further increases in fuel prices, the European car industry association ACEA said on Friday.
The increase, thanks to additional working days, came after a drop of 9.5 percent in the previous month.
"In April most European countries benefited from two or three additional working days, which helped the majority of markets post a growth in new car registrations despite the US financial crisis and further increases in fuel prices," ACEA said in a statement.
A total of 1,420,944 new vehicles were registered in April in the 28 countries, including 25 European Union (EU) members plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. Expressed in cumulative figures, European markets were stable from January to April, with only one percent increase over the same period of last year.
New car registrations in Western Europe were up 9.5 percent in April. Among countries in this area, France recorded 15 percent higher registrations thanks to two more business days.
The German market, the largest one in Europe, was recovering from a weak performance in 2007 due to a value-added tax rise, posting a 20 percent increase compared to the same month last year.
"The registration of 317,960 new cars was supported by an improving labor market and a recovering consumer confidence," ACEA said.
April was also a positive month for the British market which, after a weak beginning into 2008, posted the highest growth of the year so far with a rise of 5,505 units.
However, in Italy, the second largest market in Europe, the downturn trend continued with a decrease of 2.9 percent compared to 2007 volumes.
The Spanish market proved to be stable in April, posting a slight growth of 1.5 percent.
In April, the new EU members in Eastern Europe recorded a similar rise of 11.3 percent as noted in Western Europe, but the demand there has been consistently robust over the first four months of the year, increasing by 13.1 percent for the period over a year ago.
Poland improved its April figure by 13.8 percent, being the only market in the new EU members to have registered over 100,000 vehicles from January to April. It was closely followed by Romania with 96,971 new cars.
Among individual carmakers, Volkswagen, the biggest European producer, enjoyed strong sales growth of 11.4 percent to 293,567 units, while its compatriots did even better with BMW jumping by 24.7 percent to 80,295 units and Daimler 17.6 percent to 79,660 units.
France's Peugeot Citroen, the second biggest seller, sold 183, 229 units in April, a modest increase of 6.8 percent over a year ago. Ford Group sales rose by 7.8 percent to 141,488 units.
For Japanese carmakers, Toyota's sales dropped by 1.7 percent to 74,884 units, while Mazda and Nissan saw their sales rise by 26.5 percent and 18.6 percent respectively.
Source:Xinhua
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