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Europe's car market has shown signs of recovery
from a six-year slump, but excess production capacity, heavy
discounting and incentives continue to distort the true level of
demand.
Registrations in the European Union and the countries of the
European Free Trade Association (EFTA) increased to 1.13 million
cars last month, from 1.09 million a year earlier, the
Association of European Carmakers (ACEA) said.
Though the data showed that demand for passenger cars in the EU
increased for a ninth straight month, the level of deliveries
was the second lowest for a month of May since 2003, ACEA said.
Five-month sales in the region of 30 countries excluding Malta
were up 6.6 percent at 5.62 million cars, compared with 5.27
million in 2013. Four of Europe's five biggest markets kept
growing in May, with gains of 5.2 percent and 7.7 percent in
Germany and the U.K. offsetting a 3.8 percent drop in Italy.
Deliveries surged in the region's southern markets that were hit
by the previous economic recession, with growth of 17 percent in
Spain, 37 percent in Portugal and 42 percent in Greece. Sales
jumped 23 percent at VW's Czech division Skoda, 16 percent at
the Renault brand and 6.2 percent at Opel, part of General
Motors. Conversely, deliveries at the world's two largest luxury
automakers BMW and VW's Audi rose just 1.4 percent and 4.8
percent.
(Reporting by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Christoph Steitz and
Sophie Walker)
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