Nearly all markets fell to some degree in November, with Germany down 3.4% and 1.7% year-to-date while the French market has continued its decline with a 19.2% fall in November and the full-year market expected to stand at 1.9 million units – the weakest result in France since 1997. Italy and Spain are also set for significant declines for 2012, with lack of confidence and rising unemployment having put off potential new car buyers.

The UK market continued to move in contrast to the rest of the region, growing 11.3%, helped by a continued resurgence in private sales.

The company’s Monthly Sales Report for November shows that the Seasonally Adjusted Annualised Rate (SAAR) of sales for the region stood at 11.5 million units/year, a little better than the previous month, but still disappointingly weak.

For the full year, the market looks set to fall by 8%, which would make it the third annual fall in a row. The forecast of 11.8 million units for 2012 would see the market 3.0 million units/year down on the level achieved in 2007.

LMC Automotive adds that the data indicates that the coming months will remain week. Recent months have fallen from the average 12.2 million units in the first half of the year to closer to 11.3 million units/year. As a result the company is predicting that the market will fall by circa 3% for 2013.

The company also commented on the possibility of the re-installment of scrappage schemes, with such a scheme already having been adopted in limited form in Spain.

LMC Automotive said: ‘Any wider adoption of scrappage schemes would still fail to tackle the more fundamental issues of over‐capacity in the industry and ongoing economic headwinds, and these schemes may be politically harder to justify this time around.

‘One cannot rule wider adoption of such schemes just yet though.’