Totaling 1,143,653 units sold, in December 2016 passenger car registrations grew by 3.0%, marking the highest December total on record, supported by all major markets except for the UK, where registrations decreased by 1.1%. In the last month Italy led the growth with double digit figures (+13.1%, with 124,438 units, about 14 thousand more compared to December 2015), followed by Spain (+9.3%), France (+5.8%) and Germany (+3.7%).
Throughout 2016 European car market expanded for the third consecutive year (+6.8%), with a total amount of 14,641,356 units. This is proof that the political and economical instability, generated by events such as Brexit and the Italian referendum, haven’t affected negatively the market. All five main European markets posted growth contributing to the overall good result. Italy showed the best performance (+15.8%, with 1,824,968 registrations, nearly 250 thousand over 2015), followed by Spain (+10.9%), France (+5.1%), Germany (+4.5%) and UK (+2.3%).