European Auto Sales Rise Slightly in May; Fiat Chrysler Hammers Ford

Cars and Drivers

Published: June 15, 2018 9:47 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 10:18 pm

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) reported Thursday that new vehicle registrations in the European Union (EU) rose just 0.8% in May compared with new registrations in May 2017. New registrations for the month totaled 1.39 million units.

For the first five months of the year, sales are up 2.4%.

Of the Detroit Two, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (NYSE: FCAU) saw its market share in the EU slip to 7.7% from 7.8% last year. Unit sales totaled 108,096, down less than 0.1% year over year. Sales of the Fiat brand dropped 11.1% while Jeep sales jumped 102.5%.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sold 87,866 units in May, up 0.4% year over year for the month. The company’s May market share rang in at 6.3%, unchanged compared with last year.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) has left the EU market and had sales of just 93 units in May. Last year, before the company sold its European subsidiary to PSA, GM sold nearly 85,000 units in the month.

The top-selling maker in the EU is Volkswagen AG, which sold 350,894 vehicles in May, up 4.2% year over year for the month. VW’s market share for May was 25.1%, up from 24.3% in May 2017.

PSA Group, makers of Peugeot and Citroen among other brands, posted a May sales increase of 58% to 223,582 units. The company’s market share climbed to 16% from 10.2%. The increase includes sales in the Opel/Vauxhall group the company acquired from GM last year. PSA sold 80,304 Opel/Vauxhall units in May.

Renault Group posted a volume increase of 6.4% to 161,672 units in May and its year-over-year share rose to 11.6% from 11% in the month.

BMW Group’s market share fell in May to 5.8% from 6.2% a year ago. The company sold 81,205 units last month, down 6% compared with year-ago May sales of 86,360.

Daimler AG posted a market share dip as well last month, slipping to 5.9% from 6.3% in May 2017, with sales totaling 82,688 units. On a volume basis, sales rose 0.4%.

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) posted market share of 4.5% in May, up from 4.3% a year ago. Sales volume rose by 5.2% to 63,322 units.

For the month of May, Germany was the volume leader with more than 305,000 units sold (down 5.8% year over year for the month), followed by Italy with sales of more than 199,000 (down 2.8%), the United Kingdom with over 192,000 sales (up 3.4%), and France, with sales of nearly 192,000 vehicles sold (up 0.1%).

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.

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