September sales of new cars and light commercial vehicles fell by 56,367 units or 28.6% compared to September 2014 with a total of 140,867 units. This follows a 19.4% drop in August.

Year to date, sales were down 33% from 1,779,947 units for the first nine months of 2014 to 1,192 723 for the same period in 2015.

Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee, commented: “September did not do much to improve the year-to-date performance of the market, or the outlook on the remaining three months of the year. According to a recent poll of our members, the full-year forecast for 2015 remains practically unchanged at a level of 1.57 million sales of PC and LCV, or 37% less compared to 2014.”