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Europe's car market is missing 3.3 million cars
New car registrations in Europe fell again in 2021. With 9.7 million vehicles sold, 3.3 million are now short of the pre-crisis level of 2019. The German market has suffered particularly.
Europe's car market is missing 3.3 million cars
What is the opposite of “all’s well that ends well”? This is the question you inevitably ask yourself when you look at new car registrations in Europe in 2021. In this case it was a terrible ending. After there was much in the first half of the year that pointed to a recovery after the weak crisis year of 2020, the rude awakening came over the course of the year. The delivery difficulties due to the semiconductor shortage were naturally reflected in weak sales figures.
Minus 22.8 percent
And finally this inglorious end: In December there were not only declines for the sixth month in a row, but new registrations in the EU fell by 22.8 percent in the last month of the year. The industry association ACEA has now announced this. Fewer than 800,000 cars were sold across the EU in the final month of 2021.
There were double-digit declines in most individual markets on the continent, including in the four largest markets Italy (-27.5%), Germany (-26.9%), Spain (-18.7%) and France (-15.1%). Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia and Slovenia were able to buck the trend.
With the poor December performance, the entire annual balance was ruined: 2021 brought a decline of 2.4 percent in new registrations across the EU, which totaled 9.7 million units. While this may not seem dramatic at first glance, it is, given that the bar has already been set very low following the slumps in 2020.
Germany is a spoilsport
According to ACEA, new registrations in 2021 were already 3.3 million cars below the pre-crisis level in 2019. Incidentally, Germany was the most affected market among the “big four” in 2021: sales declines there were more than ten percent. For comparison: In France, new registrations only fell by 0.5 percent and in Spain and Italy there was an increase of 1.0 and 5.5 percent respectively for the year as a whole. In this respect, the EU deficit is largely due to Germany.
In Austria By the way, sales declines of 3.6 percent were recently reported. This made the year 2021 the worst Car year since 1984.