West European June car sales fall 4% on weak Germany

West European new car sales slipped 4 percent in June as high fuel prices and a glut of used cars pulled back demand in Germany, Europe’s largest vehicle market.

Sales last month fell to 1.3 million vehicles, from 1.35 million in June 1999, according to registration figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. In the first half of 2000, sales rose 1.6 percent to 8.24 million.

Germany, Europe’s biggest car market, is in the doldrums. VDA, the German carmakers association, has slashed its sales estimate for the year. Germans are buying fewer new cars, put off by higher fuel prices and lured by savings available on used cars flooding the market. German June car sales dropped 19.3 percent to 293,000.

“The wild card remains Germany,” said Arthur Maher, an auto industry consultant with J.D. Power-LMC, before the numbers were released. Lack of demand from German buyers is “a serious problem for Germany’s manufacturers.”

France remained the strongest among Europe’s four largest car markets. June car registrations in Europe’s second-biggest economy surged 75.4 percent to 183,697 vehicles from a year earlier as a 3.6 percent expansion in the economy and a decline in unemployment to the lowest level since December 1991 gave consumers more money to spend.

France also got a boost after the government scrapped the annual July introduction of new registration plates, which had traditionally led to slower sales growth in June.

The contrasting health of national markets was reflected in the performance of Europe’s largest carmakers. Sales of Volkswagen AG, which controls more than 30 percent of the German car market, slipped 5.5 percent to 241,600, while PSA Peugeot Citroen, with about 30 percent of the French market, jumped 12.2 percent to 172,029 and Renault SA sales rose 3.1 percent to 138,144 units. Reuters