A swallow that does not make spring: this is how the European car market can be represented in March 2021. In fact, during the period in question 1,387,924 cars were registered in Western Europe (EU + EFTA + UK), with a growth of 62 , 7% on March 2020 which, however, had been a month of total lockdown, the same month that had completely smoothed out the demand. If nothing else, the latter improves compared to last February, when registrations of new cars stopped at 850,170 units.
But to get an idea of the actual market trend – warns the Centro Studi Promotor (CSP) – it is necessary to make a comparison with the last “normal” March, which is that of 2019. “This comparison highlights a decrease in as much as 21.6% which reflects a market situation that is still extremely difficult throughout Western Europe both due to the closures of dealerships in many countries and, and above all, to the impact of the pandemic on the economy and therefore on the propensity to purchase of cars by individuals and companies “, explains in an official note Gian Primo Quagliano, president of CSP:” However, it should be noted that in this particularly difficult situation, registrations of electric and hybrid cars continue to grow everywhere, but the positive dynamics of demand for this type of vehicle is not sufficient to offset the negative effects of the pandemic ”.
Precisely by virtue of the comparison with the disastrous March 2020, it is Italy that has recorded the best rebound among European countries: in March, virtual growth was close to 500%. Followed by France (+ 191.7%), Spain (+ 128%), Germany (+ 35.9%) and the United Kingdom (+ 11.5%). The cause of these differences is due to the very different impacts that the pandemic has had on the markets of the different countries that make up the area: in other words, the more the consequences of the pandemic have affected local demand in 2020, the higher the percentage of growth that is recorded today. However, the trend in the first quarter bodes well: registrations are up by 3.2% to 2,560,330 units, despite January (-24%) and February (-19.3%) not having shone at all. The locomotive in this sense was Italy (+ 28.7%) and France (+ 19.3%), while Spain (-14.9%), United Kingdom (-12%) and Germany (-6) , 4%).
But, as CSP specifies, if the comparison is made with 2019, the outlook changes radically: “comparing the trend of the major Western European markets in the first quarter of 2021 with that of the first quarter of 2019, it emerges that Germany is experiencing a decline in 25.4%. In the United Kingdom, registrations in the first quarter compared to the same period of 2019 recorded a decrease of 39.3% “. For Italy, the same comparison shows a drop of 16.9%. “The reason for the less negative result in Italy is due to the fact that in our country incentives have also been provided for cars with traditional fuels and with emissions not exceeding 135 gr / km which have been remarkably successful”, explains CSP. In France in the first quarter of 2021 the decrease compared to the corresponding period of 2019 was 20.2%, while the absolute worst result in the first quarter of this year was recorded by Spain, with a contraction in registrations on the first quarter of 2019 41.3%.
