“Europe’s car-sales contraction accelerated in February as a steepening decline in Germany, the region’s biggest market, hurt previously resilient Volkswagen AG (VOW), Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG.
Registrations dropped 10 percent to 829,359 vehicles last month from 923,553 a year earlier, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, or ACEA, said today in a statement. Two-month sales fell 9.3 percent to 1.75 million cars. The decline in January amounted to 8.5 percent.
Unemployment is rising as a recession deepens in the 17 countries using the euro. General Motors Co., Fiat SpA (F) and PSA Peugeot Citroen (UG) posted the biggest sales drops in Europe last month. Declines were exacerbated in Italy, the region’s third- biggest car market, by an inconclusive parliamentary election, while government incentives in Spain failed to stem a slide in that country’s deliveries.
“This is as lousy as expected,” Gaetan Toulemonde, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in Paris, said by phone. “We won’t see any sign of recovery before the second half.”
The ACEA reports figures for the 27-nation European Union plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. Deliveries in western Europe, which excludes countries that have joined the EU since mid-2004, plunged 10 percent to 774,415 vehicles in February.
‘Mixed Picture’ ….”
