Europe in sales crisis

Think back a few weeks. Remember the shocking news that August’s new car sales figures were the UK’s lowest since 1966? Well while the media concentrated on the home front, what wasn’t so widely reported was that the whole of Europe was hit equally hard.Compared with August 2007, UK sales were down by 18.6 per cent, but spare a thought for car dealers in Ireland and Spain where sales slumped by over 41 per cent. Meanwhile, Italy suffered a 26 per cent fall, Sweden 23 per cent, and even Germany experienced a 10.4 per cent drop.

Look at the year-to-date figures for 2007 against 2008 and a more balanced picture emerges, with Spain down 20 per cent, Italy 12 and the UK just 3.8 per cent. However, the general trend is still downwards, and although the September sales figures weren’t available as we went to press, an SMMT spokeswoman told us: ‘It looks likely that sales will be down on the same period last year.’

Across Europe some marques had it tougher than others, notably Land Rover, which experienced a whopping 54.9 per cent drop from 4445 cars sold in August 2007 to just 2006 in the same month this year. Other big fallers include Alfa Romeo (down 27.6 per cent) and both the major Swedish marques, Saab (26.9 per cent) and Volvo (26.2).

Alfa in particular is looking shaky, with year-to-date sales having dropped from 102,880 in 2007 to 69,894 this year, a fall of over 32 per cent. No wonder European car firms are starting to reduce production.