The corona crisis not only hits the German car market hard. Sales figures also plummeted worldwide. Only in China is the situation gradually recovering.
Brussels (dpa) - The corona pandemic has caused global car sales to plummet. In the European Union (EU) alone, only 270,682 new cars were registered in April, 76.3 percent less than in the same month last year, as the responsible industry association Acea in Brussels announced.
The number of registrations had already decreased in January and February, before falling by more than half in March. The slump in April in the wake of the worsening virus crisis was now much stronger.
According to the industry association Acea, one reason for the slumps was the closed car dealerships during the ongoing pandemic. Each of the 27 EU markets had to accept declines in the double-digit percentage range.
According to the Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), the declines were particularly dramatic in Italy, Spain and Britain, which is no longer part of the EU. With declines between 97 and 98 percent, sales in these countries "almost completely came to a standstill," the VDA said. France also experienced a violent crash with a decline of 88.8 percent. In Germany, new registrations were reported to decline by 61.1 percent.
A similar picture emerged according to the VDA in industrialized countries outside Europe. Sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in the USA dropped 47 percent to 707,800 vehicles, the lowest level in more than ten years. Declines were also drastic in Brazil (minus 77 percent) and Japan (minus 30 percent).
In China, on the other hand, where the restrictions in the Corona crisis were relaxed several weeks ago, the situation improved again. "The market volume only decreased by 2 percent to 1.5 million new vehicles," said the VDA. Nevertheless, the slump in the overall period between January and April was also dramatic, at minus 35 percent.
Among the German manufacturers, the VW group with all its vehicle brands recorded a decline of 72.7 percent in April. At Daimler, the drop was still slightly larger at 78.8 percent, while the drop at BMW was 65.3 percent compared to the same month last year. The French automakers Renault and PSA each lost around 80 percent, the Italian-American automaker Fiat-Chrysler even almost 90 percent.
According to the information, the drop in new EU registrations has been 38.5 percent since the beginning of the year: a total of 2.75 million cars were registered. In three of the four most important EU markets - Italy, Spain and France - new registrations fell by around half. In Germany, the decline was 31 percent after the first four months.