February Deliveries Indicate Continued European Slump

PARIS – Improving sales of the Renault Clio, Peugeot 208 and Nissan Qashqai make at least three product managers happy in Europe, although car registrations overall fell again by 10.5% in February to 795,482 units.

The decline was larger than January’s, and again only the U.K. showed a sales improvement among the major countries in Europe, up 7.9%.

Nonetheless, there are minute signs the bottom of a 6-year sales slide could arrive this year. Greece and Portugal, two of the hardest-hit economies in Europe, both had plus months in February. If they begin to recover, other European economies could follow.

While sales were off 9.5% after two months, industry leaders continue to predict the market will be down only 4% to 5% for all of 2013, which implies considerable improvement later in the year.

Deliveries this year match those of 1993, when a recession touched Europe.

With sales at that level, Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn says in an interview with Challenges magazine, “either you think that this is the Apocalypse, which is not my opinion, or you think that what happened is the consequence of uncertainties about the euro and Europe and the will of the governments to solve their deficit problems or not.

“However, these are uncertainties that are all in the course of being resolved,” he says. “There will be a moment when the market stabilizes. People aren’t going to abruptly become optimistic, but they could again begin to imagine replacing their cars.”

The early success of the B-segment cars from Renault and Peugeot kept the French auto makers roughly in line with the market decline. Renault was off 14.8% in February even as Clio deliveries jumped 17.5%, while Peugeot was down 8.7% as the new 208 made up some 35% of the brand’s total sales.

Nissan volume was down 7.8%, offset by a 3.6% gain in Qashqai sales, which account for 56% of the auto maker’s total.

Among the volume manufacturers, Ford and General Motors are suffering the most this year. Ford sales were off 21% in the month, and its market share year-to-date is down to 6.7% from 7.9% year-ago. GM deliveries tumbled 20.6% in February, with the Chevrolet brand alone dropping 39%.

The Volkswagen Golf remained Europe’s best-selling model with 32,663 units registered in the month, according to Jato Dynamics. Although the Golf’s numbers were slightly down from February 2012, they topped the Clio and VW Polo by more than 10,000 and were about double those of the 208 (18,867) and Qashqai (15,813).

Volkswagen is by far the leading brand in Europe, and although VW sales were down 9.9% for the month, the group has a year-to-date market share of 24.5%.

Land Rover, Jaguar, Honda, Dacia, Mazda and SEAT recorded back-to-back monthly sales increases and among markets, the U.K., Poland, Belgium, Portugal and Estonia were positive in February and on the year.