Demand for new passenger cars in Europe remained stable in April (-0.4%), with 1,303,787 units. Central European countries led the growth (+4.6%), while among the biggest national markets Spain posted the highest upturn (+2.6%), followed by Italy (+1.5%, with 174,412 units, about 2.5 thousand more than in April 2018) and France (+0.4%). On the contrary, UK and Germany slowed down (respectively -4.1% and -1.1%).
In the first four months of 2019, European car market fell by 2.6%, with 5.3 million registrations overall (5,336,703). Looking at the five largest markets, Germany and France showed no significant change (-0.2% and -0.4%), while registrations decreased in UK (-2.7%), Spain (-4.5%) and Italy (-4.6%, with 712,196 units sold, over 34 thousand less than in the same period last year).