According to IHS Automotive, even with the calendar effect the market still recorded a robust increase with the ongoing robust performance of the German economy and wage rises maintaining consumption and confidence.

The firm added that one notable element to the market in June was the very strong uplift in plug-in hybrid (PHEV) sales. Outright numbers are still small but an increase of 216.1% y/y to 4,979 units was still impressive. PHEV sales are set to increase further as more models come onto the market to supplement models like the Golf GTE and the Audi A3 e-tron, which helped June's uplift. Electric vehicles (EVs) actually underperformed the overall market with a rise of 11.3% y/y during the month to 4,663 units.

Volkswagen (VW) as usual dominated the market although the brand actually lost a small amount of share during the period by slightly underperforming the market. This translated to a 12.7% y/y rise to 63,306 units during June. This is actually atypical of the brand's performance in 2015, during which VW has mostly outperformed the overall market. This is reflected by an 8.5% y/y increase in its sales during the first half of the year to 351,110 units.

Mercedes-Benz retained its customary second position with a highly accelerated rise in sales of 22.3% y/y to 28,208 units. Mercedes-Benz YTD sales rose by the much slower rate of 4.3% y/y to 142,475 units.

The race with Audi was as intense as ever after the latter stole second place in the market off Mercedes in April. Audi enjoyed a similarly positive uplift of 23%% to 27,479 units, which lifted sales for the first six months by 5.6% y/y to 141,192 units, which was very close to Mercedes-Benz's ultimate tally.

Opel actually took fourth spot in the sales table from BMW, helped by the launch of the new Corsa and the new Karl low-cost A-segment car. Sales rose by 9.2% y/y to 24,241 units, although this uplift remained below the overall rise in the market during the month. Opel's YTD sales increased substantially more slowly than the overall market uplift, with a 0.8% y/y rise to 113,861 units.

BMW fell back in June as its sales only rose by 3.4% y/y to 23,569 units. However, IHS said the brand's momentum should lead to an increase in the second half of the year as sales of the revised 1-Series gather pace and the mid-life refresh for the 3-Series is launched. YTD BMW brand sales rose at the comparatively slow rate of 2.9% y/y to 123,043 units, with the aforementioned issues also affecting that tally.

Fifth-placed Ford's sales rose almost exactly in line with the market with a 12.1% y/y increase to 22,035 units. Mitsubishi posted one of the highest OEM sales growth rates in June with an 80.1% y/y rise in sales to 4,003 units, helped by strong interest in the Outlander PHEV, while Jeep also posted a rise of 74.5% y/y to 1,330 units because of the launch of the Renegade in the last 12 months

For the full year IHS Automotive is retaining its forecast of an increase in passenger car sales of 3.5% y/y to 3.14 million units, a gain of around 3.5% y/y. Fears over the "Grexit" do not seem to have affected confidence although it remains to be seen what impact there will be if Greece does leave the Eurozone.