European Car Sales Drop 16% on Cost of Fuel, Economy (Update1)
By Laurence Frost
Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- European car sales tumbled 16 percent last month, the fourth straight decline, as higher fuel prices and slowing economies hurt demand for models from General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp.
Vehicle purchases dropped to 805,839 in August from 955,318 a year earlier, the sharpest decline since the inclusion of data from countries that joined the European Union in 2004, the Brussels- based European Automobile Manufacturers' Association said today.
Eight-month sales fell 3.9 percent, compared with a 2.8 percent contraction through July. GM suffered a 24 percent decline for August as pricier gasoline hurt demand for pickups and sport-utility vehicles, while registrations of Toyota's aging model line up dropped 23 percent. The decline was sharpest in Spain, where sales fell 41 percent, while Eastern Europe -- which has rescued results in recent months -- had an 8.7 percent drop.
``This is a really bad number,'' said Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst at Credit Suisse in London with an ``underweight'' rating on the European auto industry. ``No market is safe. Eastern Europe has been a growth engine, but now that too is coming down.''
The decline in sales reflects ``the general deterioration in consumer confidence and the effect of continuing high fuel prices,'' the European auto-industry body said in a statement.
Peugeot, VW
Among European manufacturers, Paris-based PSA Peugeot Citroen, the region's second-biggest carmaker, had the steepest decline, with registrations down 19 percent. Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen AG, the European No.1 carmaker, suffered a 9.5 percent drop, led by an 18 percent decline for the Spanish-made Seat.
VW sold more than 186,000 autos in total last month, followed by Peugeot with almost 97,000. Renault SA, the French No. 2, had a 5.6 percent decline to 72,000 registrations, while Detroit-based GM and Toyota of Japan, the world's two biggest automakers, sold 71,000 and 45,000 vehicles respectively.
The nine-member Bloomberg Europe Autos Index was down 2.2 percent as of 8:50 a.m. in London. Boulogne-Billancourt-based Renault fell as much as 3.7 percent, Peugeot as much as 3.1 percent and Fiat SpA 2.7 percent after Italy's biggest carmaker suffered a 12 percent drop in August sales to less than 56,000 vehicles.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/...601085&sid=af1x6TXnf9mw&refer=europe
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