The rise and fall of new car sales isn’t an uncommon occurrence and shouldn’t be alarming. No Business can ever expect to rely on unlimited exponential growth. It never happens, unless you happen to work in the private banking sector where it is common for corporations to miss-sell and fix the books. In Europe new car sales fell by 9 percent in August as registrations decreased to 1.07 million cars. That’s billions of dollars worth in lost revenue. Volkswagen, Renault, Nissan, and Fiat were the biggest losers in terms of flagging sales.
Nissan experienced the biggest drop of them all with a 48 percent decline in demand. Renault was down by 38 percent. Fiat’s sales freefall is seemingly at an exponential decline with a 26 percent fall in new car sales. Volkswagen recorded a 14 percent decline.
Among the premium manufactures Mercedes Benz was the only company to increase its sales in August by 14 percent. Audi and BMW recorded a decline of 9.1 percent and 8.4 percent. Jaguar’s misery continued with a 21 percent decline while Land Rover posted a nominal fall of 3.3 percent.
Skoda was the only mass-brand to increase its sales of new cars in August with a robust 5.4 percent, Seat fell by 1 percent. The Citroen Peugeot group recorded a combined 11.5 percent fall while it’s premium DS brand increased August sales by 26 percent.
Porsche saw it’s European sales fell by 18 percent. August is usually a slow sales month for new vehicle registrations. In addition last year August saw bumper sales with new car releases. Year on year it’s a typical sales cycle, one good year one year bad. August 2020 could be better.
However, a lingering risk of recession is hovering over the German economy. The German economy is the very fabric of the European Union. And with China’s economy slowing down due to a trade war with America, Europe is likely to be impacted over the next year.