Bad Homburg. The German market continued to show strong demand for new passenger cars in July. 317,848 new passenger car registrations correspond to an increase of 12.3 percent over the same month last year. In the months from January to July 2018, growth amounted to 4.2 percent with a total of 2,156,879 million newly registered passenger cars. Both the monthly result and the volume of new registrations in the first seven months of 2018 are thus at the highest level since the 2009 scrapping bonus.
As in previous months, private demand is driving the market. With around 117,600 units in July, the private market grew by 16 percent year-on-year. From January to July, private demand rose by 13 percent to over 813,000 units. Like the overall market, the current private market is at its highest level since 2009.
In this positive environment, the VDIK member companies were able to increase their market share to 38.3 percent (previous year 37.8 percent) with 825,892 new registrations in the first seven months of the year.
At 102,761 new registrations, the 10.5 percent decline in the diesel market in July was significantly lower than in previous months. Demand fell by 18.7 percent to 693,536 units in the course of the year. The market share of passenger cars with diesel engines was 32 percent both in July and on a cumulative basis.
VDIK President Reinhard Zirpel: “The continuing very good demand is accelerating the dynamic renewal of the vehicle population that has been observed since 2017. Increased demand for gasoline-powered passenger cars and alternative drives is providing an additional boost in reducing NOx emissions. The continuing high level of private demand is a reliable indicator of the good state of the market. We also expect a strong overall market in August.”
