Easter holidays take toll on EU car registrations
Car registrations in the EU fell in April, with the decline attributed to the Easter holidays, although the market remains up year to date.
Car registrations in the EU fell in April, although the market remains up year-to-date © gerard uferas
Latest figures from the ACEA show that registrations were down -6.6% to 1,191,034 units, with demand most of the major markets seeing declines. The UK posted a double-digit drop (-19.8%), followed by Germany (-8.0%), France (-6.0%) and Italy (-4.6%). Only the Spanish market grew last month, recording a slight increase (+1.1%).
Positive contributions mainly came from the ‘EU-12’ countries, which were up +8.2%.
From January to April 2017, demand for passenger cars remained positive (+4.7%), totalling 5,332,854 units. Italy (+8.0%), Spain (+6.1%), Germany (+2.5%), France (+2.0%) and the United Kingdom (+1.1%) all saw their markets grow during the first four months of the year.
Natalie Middleton
Natalie has worked as a fleet journalist for nearly 20 years, previously as assistant editor on the former Company Car magazine before joining Fleet World in 2006. Prior to this, she worked on a range of B2B titles, including Insurance Age and Insurance Day. Natalie edits all the Fleet World websites and newsletters, and loves to hear about any latest industry news - or gossip.
