European Auto Sales Rise 10% in April; Ford Adds to Share

Cars and Drivers

Published: May 17, 2018 7:30 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 11:30 pm

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) reported Thursday that new vehicle registrations in the European Union (EU) jumped 9.6% in April compared with new registrations in April of 2017. New registrations for the month totaled 1.31 million units.

New registrations dropped by 5.3% year over year in March after rising 4.3% in February and 7.1% in January. For the first four months of the year, sales are up 2.7%.

Of the Detroit Three, Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sold 86,252 units in April, up 14% year over year for the month. The company’s April market share rang in at 6.6%, up 0.2 percentage points compared with last year.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) saw its market share in the EU dip from 7.4% in April 2017 to 6.8% this year. Unit sales totaled 89,461, up 2% year over year. Sales of the Fiat brand dropped 4.7%, while Jeep sales jumped 74.8%.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) has left the EU market and had sales of just 49 units in April. Last year, before the company sold its European subsidiary to PSA, GM sold nearly 70,000 units in the month.

The top-selling maker in the EU is Volkswagen, which sold 335,518 vehicles in April, up 13.8% year over year for the month. VW’s market share for the month totaled 25.7%, up from 24.7% in April 2017.

PSA Group, makers of Peugeot and Citroen among other brands, posted an April sales increase of 70% to 212,534 units. The company’s market share rose from 10.5% to 16.3%. The increase includes sales in the Opel/Vauxhall group the company acquired from GM last year. PSA sold 71,446 Opel/Vauxhall units in April.

Renault Group posted a volume increase of 9.7% to 140,562 units in April, while its year-over-year share was unchanged at 10.8% in the month.

BMW Group’s market share dipped in April from 6.4% a year ago to 5.8%. The company sold 75,181 units last month, down 1.4% compared with year-ago April sales of 76,274.

Daimler posted a market share decline as well, dropping from 6.5% in April 2017 to 6.3% last month with sales totaling 82,288 units. On a volume basis, sales rose 6.5%.

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) posted a market share of 4.7% in April, up from 4.3% a year ago. Sales volume jumped by 21.2% to 61,832 units.

For the month of April, Germany was the volume leader with more than 314,000 units sold (up 8.0% year over year for the month), followed by France with sales of more than 187,000 (also up 8.0%), Italy with over 171,000 sales (up 6.5%), and the United Kingdom, up by nearly 168,000 vehicles sold (up 10.4%).

EU sales totaled 15.14 million units in 2017, compared with 2016 sales for the 27 EU members of 14.64 million, up 3.4% compared with 2016 unit sales.