After the great outcome recorded in March, in April 2017 demand for new passenger cars in the EU declined by 6.6%, totaling 1,191,034 units, as a consequence of a demand fall that involved most of the main national markets, except for Spain (+1.1%), which kept growing although at a slow pace. UK posted the worst result (-19.8%), followed by Germany (-8.0%), France (-6.0%) and Italy (-4.6%, with 160,359 registrations, nearly 8 thousand less than in March 2016).
In the first four months of 2017 passenger car registrations increased by 4.7%, supported by all five largest markets, with 5,332,854 units sold. From January to April Italy posted the best performance (+8.0%, with 743,321 cars, almost 55 thousand over the same period last year) followed by Spain (+6.1%), Germany (+2.5%), France (+2.0%) and UK (+1.1%).