Following the hopes and dreams of green-shooters everywhere with April's +0.6% YoY growth in European car sales, the last two months have been a bitter disappointment as sales have collapsed once again - down 6.3% YoY in June. Sales have been negative year-over-year for 18 of the last 19 months - longer than the 18 months during the financial crisis in 2008/9 and just printed at a fresh 20 year low. Car manufacturers are not amused and are demanding action, as Reuters reports [5], "What is the government waiting for to enact measures to support investment in this key sector?"
The drop in sales is across every make with luxury brands just as affected (BMW fell 7.7% and Audi -8.9%) as others (Fiat -13.6% and Peugeot -10.9%). Despite some desperate hope from industry associations "The market has bottomed out, for sure," it seems the actual CEOs are less positive as BMW's boss noted he did not expect a rebound in western European markets until at least the middle of next year.
[6]
Remember April when we were told Europe was on its way back because of the improvement in car sales... how now?
More from Bloomberg:
European car sales slumped to a two-decade low, German investor confidence unexpectedly dropped and euro-area exports fell for a second month, adding to signs that the region is struggling to emerge from recession.
The region’s car sales in the first half fell 6.7 percent to 6.44 million vehicles. The June figure was the lowest for the month since 1996, and the six-month number was the least since 1993, said Quynh-Nhu Huynh, the ACEA’s economics director.
“It’s still a weak car market, and I don’t think that it will get better in the very near future,” Sascha Gommel, a Frankfurt-based analyst at Commerzbank AG, said by phone. “I wouldn’t expect a recovery in the second half, but rather a stabilization at a low level.”
Charts: Bloomberg