World Vehicle Sales Down 0.7% in July

Global vehicle sales totaled 6.87 million units in July, a 0.7% decline over same-month 2014.

North America posted the largest year-over-year growth. Sales rose 5.6% to 1.84 million units, with all countries recording gains over year-ago. North American deliveries accounted for 26.8% of the global market.

Deliveries in the U.S. climbed 5.5%. A 15.9% boost in Mexico sales balanced modest improvement in Canada, up 0.4%.

The European market performed nearly as well as North America, increasing 5.4% to 1.59 million vehicle sales. The region’s global market share was 23.2%.

Economic troubles in Russia (-27.4%) and Greece (-28.9%) hampered the area’s growth, but all other major markets posted year-over-year gains. Germany, the largest, saw sales rise 6.7%. Registrations in the U.K. and France were up 3.3% and 1.1%, respectively. Italy (+14.0%), the Netherlands (+13.8%), Poland (+15.6), Spain (+24.8%) and several smaller countries saw double-digit gains.

Sales in the Asia-Pacific region fell from like-2014 for a fourth consecutive month. Reaching 2.96 million vehicles, sales were down 4.5% in July, the largest year-to-year drop since February 2013. World market share slipped to 43.1%, a 26-month low.

China was the primary downward force as registrations dropped 7.1% from last year. Poor results in Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan further negated growth in India, South Korea, Australia and Thailand.

South America continued to record poor sales results, falling 18.1% from year-ago to 388,000 units. Deliveries in the region accounted for 5.6% of the global total.

Every tracked country posted figures lower than prior-year. Brazil had the worst outcome as sales plummeted 22.8%. Chile and Uruguay also experienced large drops, 18.2% and 17.8% respectively.

Through July, 50.36 million vehicles were sold worldwide, 0.3% below like-2014. If this trend continues, 2015 will end with the first year-over-year decline since 2009.

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