The latest data from Jato Dynamics has confirmed new car registrations across 29 European markets declined by 0.5% compared to the same month last year.
European markets registered 1,140,978 units in October, representing the second highest October registrations since 2009. Jato attributed the 0.5% decline to there being one less working day in October in several markets, and suggested it indicates that the market is heading towards an peak.
Manufacturers that saw their market share decline included Volkswagen Group, Renault-Nissan, PSA and Ford, while BMW and Daimler, along with FCA, Hyundai-Kia and General Motors all gained ground. PSA posted the biggest market share drop of all the manufacturers, losing 0.73 percentage points of market share as a result of its three brands – Peugeot, Citroen and DS Automobiles posting declines in registrations of 4.7%, 9.1% and 28.9% respectively.
Volkswagen Group’s core brand (Volkswagen) dropped by 8%, while its Porsche brand which posted a 12.2% decline. Overall the group’s market share in October 2016 was 0.32 percentage points lower than in the same month last year, falling from 25.2% to 24.9%.
In contrast, FCA was the biggest market share winner, increasing its share by 0.40 percentage points, going from 6.2% in October 2015 to 6.6% in October 2016. This increase was driven by the Lancia and Alfa Romeo brands with both posting double digit growth of 24.5% and 21.3% respectively.
Felipe Munoz, Global Automotive Analyst at JATO Dynamics commented: “As the growth in the market slowed in October, it was the manufacturers that rely most heavily on the Southern European countries or premium brands that performed the best. This shows that the market is shifting and going through a transition phase and we would expect the market to continue to fluctuate over the coming months.”
As to broader market trends: the SUV segment saw 302,851 registrations in October: a 12.1% increase on the same month last year. The MPV segment showed the biggest market share decline of more than 1 percentage points, and a significant decline in registrations of 10.9%.
In terms of model ranking, the Volkswagen Golf maintained its lead, despite a significant drop in sales that saw its registrations decline by 21.2%. Its Tiguan posted a significant increase of 52.5% which was largely due to the launch of the new generation of the model in April 2016.
The Opel/Vauxhall Astra was the fifth best-selling car in Europe, its volume was up by 55.8% and it gained the most market share of any of the top 20 best-selling models with an increase of 0.65 percentage points, all due to the launch of the new generation of the model.
Felipe Munoz, Global Automotive Analyst at JATO Dynamics concluded: “In October we saw the impact of the new generations of the Opel/Vauxhall Astra and the Volkswagen Tiguan. Both helped offset the significant losses suffered by both manufacturers’ other models.”
