New car registrations in Europe: Opel loses market share in the first quarter

04/18/2018

New car registrations in Europe Opel is losing substantial market share in the first quarter

Opel

In the first quarter and Opel compact car model Astra was not a big seller

Opel is once again in crisis mood. Recently, the traditional German brand has all dealers in Europe the contracts terminated, At a meeting of trade unionists and German leaders on the future of Opel-Werke took Carlos Tavares, head of Opel’s mother PSA, not part – according to PSA for reasons of time. There is currently a dispute over the plant in Eisenach, where IG Metall reproaches Opel for failing to comply with 2017 commitments.

One reason for the hard pace of Opel management is likely to be the current sales figures: Despite all restructuring efforts, despite lower losses than expected The brand has recently sold significantly fewer new cars and lost market share. This can be read – with some difficulty – from the current car registration figures for Europe, the industry association ACEA has now published,

Accordingly, the Opel brand sold 245,903 vehicles in the 28 EU countries in the first quarter of 2018. Since Opel belongs to the French automaker PSA Group (Peugeot, Citroën, DS) since the middle of last year, ACEA for Opel in its current statistics, no comparable figures for the same quarter last year. Because Opel was still part of General Motors.

However, a look at the April 2017 ACEA statistics with first quarter 2017 sales figures reveals some sales figures. According to ACEA, the Opel brand sold 271,798 new cars between January and March of the previous year. For Opel, this results in a drop in sales of 9.5 percent in the direct comparison of the first quarter of 2018 and 2017. However, the numbers are not very precise, because the ACEA always gives preliminary figures in its press releases. However, the comparison with other car brands shows that the discrepancies between the preliminary figures published last April and the final figures published in the most recent release for the first quarter of 2017 are only a few hundred per brand.

EU new registrations increased slightly in the first quarter

The fact that Opel has lost a lot in new car sales, so it is clear – if not to the decimal places exactly. A glance at market shares also confirms this: In the first quarter of 2017, the Opel brand reached a market share of 6.6 percent across the EU (according to preliminary figures). From January to March 2018, Opel’s market share was only 5.9 percent, according to ACEA.

Opel’s sell-offs are contrasted by a slightly increasing overall market: According to ACEA, new car sales in EU countries rose by 0.7 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period of the previous year. Significant growth was recorded in Spain (+10.5 percent), Germany (+4 percent and France (+2.9 percent). New registrations in Italy were pleasing in the first three months (-1.5 percent and Great Britain (-12.4 percent).

For the month of March alone, the Opel sales figures provide an even grimmer picture. As the preliminary ACEA figures show, Opel sold 108,249 new cars across the EU in March. In March 2017, there were still 128.702 cars. Opel has therefore sold in comparison to the previous March, by almost 16 percent less new cars.

As the ACEA new car statistics show, the European car market weakened in March for the first time this year. The number of new registrations in the EU countries fell by 5.3 percent year-on-year to just under 1.8 million vehicles.

However, March 2017, the highest month of the month, was also a major hurdle. Since the beginning of the year, the market still has a plus of 0.7 percent.

According to the association, the major car markets in the European Union have recently developed differently. The losers included Great Britain (-15.7 percent), Italy (-5.8 percent) and Germany (-3.4 percent). New registrations increased in France (+2.2 percent) and Spain (+2.1 percent).

Among the German manufacturers only Volkswagen was able to increase (+0.3 percent). At Daimler (-3.4 percent) and BMW (-5.8 percent), however, there were fewer newly registered vehicles.

with material from dpa-afx

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