The firm said that although all the major sales markets had one extra sales day in November, this was a still a genuinely robust sales increase of around 8% given the seasonal adjustment. However, the market remains heavily reliant on fleet sales and discounting.

After 11 months of 2015, the Western European passenger car market is up by an impressive 8.4% to 12.1 million units and is on target to meet the IHS forecast of 13.0 million units.

The German passenger car market posted a very robust uplift in November with an 8.9% y/y rise to 272,377 units. This helped the market's year-to-date (YTD) tally rise by 5.4% y/y to 2,958,687 units. The split of sales types stood at 33.6% private sales and 66.4% fleet sales.

The French passenger car market was lifted by the additional working day, with 20 days under consideration versus 19 days during November 2014. With this taken into account, the growth rate falls to 4.6% y/y. Nevertheless, the latest gains have further benefited year to date (YTD) growth, which now stands at 5.3% y/y as the total registrations for the market over the 11 months hit 2,073,061 units.

The Spanish passenger car market has rebounded from the weak single-digit percentage registrations growth during October. Registrations in November have increased by 25.4% y/y to 81,650 units. However, this improvement will have been helped by the additional working day.

The Italian passenger-car market has also risen strongly during November. According to the latest data published by trade association UNRAE, registrations are up by 23.5% y/y to 134,021 units. This has further helped the market's YTD performance, which has now recorded growth of 15.5% y/y to 1,464,747 units.

The UK passenger car market has returned to growth during November after stalling the previous month. According to the latest data the number of cars registered this month has grown by 3.8% y/y to 178,876 units. The growth has helped to support the YTD, which now stands at 2,453,426 units, an increase of 6.2% y/y.

IHS added that moving into 2016 the forecast is for no further rise, which tallies with the growing uncertainty regarding the global macroeconomic and security situation.