German New Car Sales Stumble In October

FRANKFURT,, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 02nd Nov, 2016 ) - Germany, Europe's biggest car market, saw a sharp dip in sales in October after two months of strong growth, official data showed on Wednesday, although the industry shrugged off the slide as Calendar effects.

A 5.6-percent fall in registrations compared with the same month last year saw just over 262,700 new cars hit the road, the KBA transport authority reported. The agency had recorded increases in August and September of 8.3 and 9.4 percent, boosted by increased consumption by private households.

Carmakers' federation VDA blamed the fall in registrations on calendar effects, pointing in a statement to the two fewer working days in October compared with the same month in 2015. Registrations over the whole year remain positive, with a total of 2,818,507 cars registered in Germany from January to October, an increase of 4.9 percent over the same period in 2015.

"The positive trend is still present" and was boosted by a higher share of private purchases, said Reinhard Zirpel, head of the car importers' association VDIK, in a statement. October's data saw fewer new registrations for all German carmakers.

Scandal-hit Volkswagen, which in September 2015 admitted to installing emissions cheating software on 11 million cars worldwide, retained the largest share of the market at almost 19 percent for its own-branded cars.

But at almost 50,000, it sold just under 20 percent fewer vehicles than in October last year. Over the whole year to October, Volkswagen sales were down by 3.0 percent, worse than the 1.0 percent fall recorded over the year to September.

Luxury carmaker Porsche, a VW subsidiary, was the only other German brand to suffer a double-digit fall in sales in October, losing 13.3 percent to land at 2,276 units. Meanwhile, VW-owned Audi's sales fell 2.9 percent, Daimler-made Mercedes-Benz fell 3.5 percent, and BMW lost 2.4 percent.

But there were double-digit increases for a number of foreign carmakers, with luxury brand Jaguar more than doubling its numbers to 712. Toyota, Peugeot, Renault and Alfa Romeo were also among non-German brands to boost their sales.

The KBA recorded just over 5,000 registrations of hybrid vehicles. Of those, 1,449 were plug-in hybrids, while 1,167 all-electric drive vehicles were also registered. Industry observers have been watching the figures for electric vehicles closely this year after Berlin in May introduced subsidies to try and boost their market share.

So far the cash incentives appear to have had little effect on sales.