After a stable growth trend in the first four months of this year, new passenger car registrations on the German market fell in May by nearly 5 per cent, to 290,000 units. Here it must be remembered that May 2012 had two working days fewer than the same month last year. In the first five months more than 1.3 million passenger cars were newly registered in Germany, maintaining the good level achieved last year.
Exports were, however, affected by the debt crisis and the resulting much weaker demand in Western Europe. Total passenger car exports by German producers were 13 per cent down in May, to 347,600 units. Matthias Wissmann, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), underlined, "The market environment is more demanding than it was one year ago. However, in May 2012 our foreign orders world-wide rose by another 4 per cent. On the important US market alone, our manufacturers pushed up their sales of light vehicles by 18 per cent in May. The global market for passenger cars continues its growth, but Western Europe is increasingly a cause for concern. Europe should therefore rapidly find a common strategy for resolving the debt crisis.”
In the first five months of this year domestic car production showed a slight fall of 2 per cent to around 2.4 million units. Some 450,000 passenger cars were built in the month of May – a drop of 17 per cent compared with the record set in May 2011. The two missing working days were noticed in production in particular.