European car sales show 5% decline

OVERALL demand for cars in Europe slowed marginally in April although they were better than experts had predicted.

Analysis group JD Power said much of the decline was caused by a drop in sales in Italy. Overall, the average European selling rate was down 5% on last year.

The war in Iraq also failed to have a bearing on sales, according to the analysis provider.

Spain proved to be one of the only countries to produce encouraging results.

Sales in Spain were up 6.3% on last year and a spokesman for JD Power said: 'This suggests that demand has flattened out after the decline that set in during the final months of last year.'

French sales remained fairly consistent with previous months but with car sales standing at 180,824 to April 2003, business stands at a low level.

Some of the smaller European countries including Belgium, Greece and Norway failed to produce any startling recoveries, with year-on-year comparisons remaining low at -16.5%, -19% and -20.5% respectively.

Austria did manage to reverse the decline, with sales climbing 5.7% during the year alongside the Netherlands up 2.8% and Ireland up 1.6% (see table).

European car sales
	April 2003	April 2002	% change	YTD	YTD 2003	% 2002 change
Europe:	1,233,393	1,321,217	-6.6	5,065,379	5,263,522	-3.8
Austria:	32,063	30,320	5.7	107,211	103,675	3.4
Belgium:	43,326	51,858	-16.5	185,072	213,192	-13.2
Denmark:	8,936	10,035	-10.9	30,431	35,440	-14.1
Finland:	12,981	11,099	17.0	50,014	41,210	21.4
France:	180,824	208,094	-13.1	702,624	771,226	-8.9
Germany:	285,000	304,326	-6.4	1,071,854	1,102,847	-2.8
Greece:	23,779	29,365	-19.0	93,977	101,137	-7.2
Ireland	15,729	15,480	1.6	85,946	89,537	-4.0
Italy:	182,800	197,619	-7.5	876,276	866,182	1.2
Luxembourg:	5,242	5,276	-0.6	18,553	18,635	-0.4
Netherlands:	41,500	40,355	2.8	193,852	200,797	-3.5
Norway	7,024	8,833	-20.5	27,484	30,311	-9.3
Portugal	17,108	18,893	-9.4	64,926	81,163	-20.0
Spain	126,831	119,271	6.3	454,942	464,745	-2.1
Sweden:	23,664	24,311	-2.7	87,277	82,381	5.9
Switzerland:	29,773	32,106	-7.3	90,883	102,350	-11.2
UK*	196,812	213,976	-8.0	924,156	958,694	-3.6