De EU autootjes gaan toch ook niet echt lekker Voda, niettemin goed weekend allen!
D. Power: W European Car Market Dn 8% On Yr In May
Edited Press Release
FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)--J.D. Power Automotive Forecasting said Friday that the West European car market dropped by 8% on the year in May. Unlike some earlier months in the year, the fall could not be blamed on seasonal factors but, rather, reflects some genuine signs of weakness.
The most profound fall was in Spain but weakness was also evident in Italy, Germany and Ireland. Yet, despite these negatives, there remain some bright spots such as markets in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
It is probably too early to conclude that we are about to see a pronounced downturn emerge but the outlook has worsened slightly for 2008.
The German market underperformed in May, with sales down by 6% on the same month in 2007. The market remains 4% ahead of last year in year-to-date terms and we expect that, in light of solid fundamentals, that the market will come back to its steady growth trajectory in the coming months.
The Spanish market fell by almost a quarter in May - on a seasonally adjusted annualised basis, it was the lowest result in a decade. So bad, in fact, that the government has announced a new incentive scheme, starting in July, to help support the market: this after removing the long-standing Prever scrapping incentive only in December 2007. A sharp decline will not be avoided this year and the slowdown looks certain to last well into 2009 if not beyond.
Macro-economic weakness in Italy is the primary explanation for the 18% decline in car sales in May. Yet this result was in line with expectations and does not significantly change our expectation of an 8-10% decline in Italy in full-year 2008.
The French market was one of the bright spots in Western Europe in May. The selling rate moved up a gear to 2.25 million units per year, quite a bit in excess of our full-year 2008 expectation of around 2.1 million units.
U.K. sales dropped by 3.5% in May with the selling rate remaining relatively stable compared with last month. Continued falling sales are expected in both 2008 and 2009 as economic troubles impact consumer spending on cars.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 06, 2008 11:28 ET (15:28 GMT)
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