Oxford, UK – West European car registrations were down by 20.9% in April 2022 at 740,000m units, compared with April 2021, according to data from LMC Automotive.
West Europe car sales spiralled down in April
Supply chain bottlenecks were the main culprit for the sharp decline. However, the war in Ukraine, and Chinese lockdowns are likely to make things worse over the next few months, the analysts warned.
Taking the year as a whole, LMC Automotive predicts that the market will end 2022 smaller than it started, with underlying demand prospects also eroding. ‘Consumer confidence in the Eurozone has nosedived in the past two months,' they said, and it now is on a level not seen since the pandemic in 2020. Households will experience a serious squeeze in real incomes this year, they said.
Looking at the largest markets, in Germany sales were down 21.5% in April, at 180,264 registrations. Sales so far this year are down 9.0% on 2020.
In the UK, year-to-date sales were down 5.5%. With 119,000 cars in the month, sales are down by 15.8% on April 2021.
In France, year-to-date registrations fell by 18.6%, with a total of 470,000 units sold. In April this year 109,000 vehicles were sold.
Spanish sales were down by 12.1% in the month at 69,000 units. The year-to-date total is 233,000 units, down 11.8% on this time last year.
Sales in Italy were down by 33.0% at 97,339 units in April. A total of 440,000m vehicles have been sold there so far this year.
