European sales of passenger cars rebounded strongly in April 2018 after the first loss of the year in March. 1,34 million cars were sold in Europe this month, an increase of 9,7% on April 2017, when sales declined 7,2% on a 19,8% loss in the UK market due to an increase in the Vehicle Excise Duty that month. Accordingly, the UK is up by 10,4% this April, its first year-over-year improvement since March 2017 when sales were pulled forward in anticipation of the tax hike. Whereas the UK is traditionally the #1 European market in March, as it was this year as well, in April it is down to #4 in terms of volume, behind Germany (+8%), France (+9%) and Italy (+6,5%). Spain even outgrew the UK in April with a gain of 12,3%.
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In the first quarter of 2018, European passenger car sales are up just 0,8% to 4,26 million, with Spain (+10,5%) as the biggest contributor to the growth, with Germany (+4%) and France (+2,9%) also in the black, while car deliveries declined in Italy (-1,5%) and most notably the UK (-12,4%). The new EU member states showed strong growth of 11.9% so far this year. Crossover sales are up 18,7% in Q1, while car models lost 4,3% and MPVs lost 20,7% as automakers are replacing their MPVs with crossovers to follow a shift in demand.
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In February, European sales of passenger cars increased 4,4% to 1,15 million, which marks the fifth consecutive year of February sales growth, with sales up almost 40% on the nearly 829.000 sales of February 2013. Crossover and SUVs are the only segment to grow with an increase of 22,7% to a share of just over a third of the market while car models (hatchbacks, sedans, staton wagons, coupes and convertibles) lost 1,5% to 57,7% of the market and MPVs continued their sharp decline at -13,3% to 100.000 sales, 8,7% of the market.
After a rather unexpected double digit gain in January, sales of domestic passenger cars in China are down 8,4% in February. However, the explanation for these swings is that the Chinese New Year celebrations fell in February this year, while last year they fell mostly in January (Jan. 27 – Feb. 2), which means fewer business days in February 2018. Compared to 2016, when the celebrations were in the second month as well, 2018 sales are up 10%. Combined sales figures for the first two months are still up 3,2% which is actually still above expectations, as the Chinese car market was expected to slightly decline in the early stages of this year. The Seasonally Adjusted Annualized selling Rate in February is up to 25,28 million, up 400.000 on January. which is down by 1 million on January 2017 at 24,74 million. 
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