European Car Sales Start 2018 With 6.8% January Gain
European Car Sales Start 2018 Strong With 6.8% Gain in January
(Bloomberg) -- Europe’s car market opened the year with a 6.8 percent sales upswing in January, building on the 10-year high reached in 2017 as the region’s economy expanded.
Registrations for the month advanced to 1.29 million vehicles, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers Association said Thursday in a statement. Almost all the companies posted gains, led by the largest, Germany’s Volkswagen AG.
European consumers are growing fonder of the sport utility vehicles that have long been favored in North America. Volkswagen’s 8.7 percent sales increase was lifted by its Czech nameplate Skoda, which this week attributed its success to the modestly priced Kodiaq SUV and the smaller Karoq, which began selling in the second half of last year.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV sold almost 70 percent more Jeeps, of which it makes the Renegade in Italy. The Italian-American company plans a global expansion of the brand, a cornerstone of its effort to double profit in five years.
A growing European economy is helping to spur sales. While it benefited from an extra selling day or two in most markets compared with January 2017, the month marked the strongest January for western Europe since before the global recession, according to analysts at LMC Automotive.
Two of western Europe’s largest markets led the sales gains. Germany was up 12 percent, while Spain advanced 20 percent. The U.K., where demand has contracted since the 2016 Brexit vote, dropped 6.3 percent. The pace of expansion isn’t sustainable, LMC researchers said.
“Notwithstanding exceptionally strong results in some markets in January, there is still limited scope for growth in Germany, and a relatively weak U.K. market will constrain regional growth” for the full year, LMC said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Anthony Palazzo in London at apalazzo@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Elisabeth Behrmann, Tom Lavell
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.