- The announcement by the European Central Bank (ECB) to inject 60 billion euros per month until 2016 in the European economy for the redemption of government debt, is intended for all economic players. Through this mechanism, two notable effects are expected among other things: an increase in loans to businesses and households by banks and a decline of the Euro as a result of the creation of money.

- What are the possible effects of these decisions on the car market and car carmakers present in and outside the euro area? In theory, PC + LCV registrations in the euro area, which account for over 60% of the registration of the European Union, are expected to grow through access to credit by households (for PC) and fleet (for PC + LCV).

- However, it is necessary to qualify this, firstly because the measures of the ECB will not take effect until March and therefore the impact on household and business consumption will not be seen straight away, secondly because interest rates are already low in France and Germany, and down in Italy, Spain and Portugal.

- Finally, it should not overshadow the economic environment and the structure of a mature European car market that is also affected by other factors (transport use , ecology, politics ...) The example shown by other countries (such as Japan) who used the "quantitative easing" (or QE) without a significant effect on the growth of the automobile market, urges us to be cautious in our forecasts. At best the market could experience a momentary growth in sales or simply a surge in growth at the right time, and would have similar effects as would a "scrapping bonus".

- It is why Inovev maintains its forecast of a 2% growth in sales of passenger car and light commercial vehicle in 2015 in the EU market.

Contact us: info@inovev.com 

Contact us: info@inovev.com 

- In 2005, the share of Japanese production in Japan was 55%. In 2013, this share fell to 42%. Japanese carmakers indeed produced 20.6 million vehicles worldwide last year, including 8.6 million vehicles in Japan and 12 million outside of Japan.

- Toyota produced 9.8 million vehicles worldwide, of which 4.3 million in Japan (44% of world production).

- Honda has produced 4.2 million vehicles worldwide; of which 0.84 million in Japan (20% of world production).

- Suzuki produced 2.7 million vehicles worldwide, of which 0.98 million in Japan (37% of world production).

- Mazda has produced 1.3 million vehicles worldwide, of which 0.97 million in Japan (74% of world production).

- Mitsubishi has produced 1.2 million vehicles worldwide, of which 0.69 million in Japan (55% of world production).

- Subaru has produced 0.8 million vehicles worldwide, of which 0.64 million in Japan (79% of world production).

- The most internationalised Japanese carmakers (through plants installed worldwide) are therefore Honda (China, USA) and Suzuki (India). Toyota comes next because its Daihatsu subsidiary is mainly based in Japan. The least internationalized groups are Subaru, Mazda and Mitsubishi, which are also the three smaller Japanese carmakers.

- NB: Nissan is incorporated by Inovev as a manufacturer controlled by Renault, and therefore is French.

Contact us: info@inovev.com 

- If the European market (29 countries) increased by 5.5% in 2014 (PC market), carmakers have not all benefited from this growth. The two carmakers that experienced the strongest growth were Mitsubishi (+ 26%) and Mazda (+ 18.8%) but these are low volume carmakers. With larger volumes, the one that experienced the largest increase was the Renault-Nissan group (12.9%), thanks to Dacia (+ 23.3%), Nissan (+ 13%) and Renault (+ 9.1%). Followed by the Geely Group (+ 10.5%), thanks to its Volvo subsidiary (10.5%), the Volkswagen group (+ 7.4%), Tata Motors (+ 6.1%), thanks to its subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover (+ 6.1%). Finally, the Ford group (+ 5%), the BMW Group (+ 4.9%), the Daimler Group (+ 3.7%), PSA (+ 3.6%), the Fiat-Chrysler group (+ 3.1%), the Toyota group (+ 3%) and Hyundai-Kia (+ 2.3%) grew significantly less than the European market as a whole and thus lost market share.

- Only the GM Group sold fewer vehicles in 2014 compared to 2013 (-4.6%), but only because of the removal of the Chevrolet brand in the European market, the increase in sales of Opel (7.3 %) was not enough to offset the fall in sales of Chevrolet (-73.1%) during the same period.

- By 2015 Inovev expects a moderate growth in the European market of about 2% to about 13.25 million PC. The breakdown by manufacturer has not yet been analysed.

Contact us: info@inovev.com