After the strong decline recorded last month, in April 2018 demand for new passenger cars grew significantly (+9.6%), with 1,306,273 units sold. All major markets posted growth: Spain (+12.3%) and UK (+10.4%) led the growth with double digit increases, followed by France (+9.0%), Germany (+8.0%) and Italy (+6.5%, with 171,379 registrations, over 10 thousand more than in April 2017).
In the first four months of 2018 European passenger car registrations grew by 2.7%, totaling 5,478,442 units. From January to April, Spain posted the highest upturn (+11.0%), followed by Germany (+5.0%), France (+4.4%) and Italy (+0.2%, with 745,945 vehicles, about 1.8 thousand over the same period last year). Also new EU member states expanded (+12.5%), while British market contracted (-8.8%).