Slowdown in European market growth in the first quarter of 2018
- While the growth of the European VP market (29 countries) reached 6.5% in 2016 and 3.3% in 2017, it suffered a sharp slowdown in the first quarter of 2018. Growth over the first three months of the year does not exceed 0.6%. This sudden stoppage is mainly due to the fall of the British market (-15.7% in March 2018 and -12.4% on the 3-month total 2018) which began in April 2017 but has increased since then. The British government has increased taxes on the purchase of cars from April 2017, as a first consequence of Brexit. After six years of growth (2011), the British car market recorded its first drop in 2017 (-5.7%), with 2.54 million units. In 2018, the UK market is expected to continue to decline, probably by more than 5%.
- Other markets are struggling, such as the Scandinavian countries (Denmark: -4.9% on cumulative 3 months 2018, Sweden: -2.2%, Norway: -11.6%), Ireland (-5 , 4%) or Italy (-1.4%), while Germany (+ 4%), France (+ 2.9%), Spain (+ 10.5%) continue to progress.
- The 12 Eastern European countries continue to record strong increases (+ 11.8% for all of these countries in the first three-months of 2018, while the 17 Western European countries recorded an overall decrease of 0 , 3%). The strongest gains came from Hungary (+ 29.8%), Croatia (+ 28.7%), Romania (+ 28.6%) and Bulgaria (+26.2%). %) which are small markets ( 2% of the total 29 countries European market).
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