Figures released this morning by the European car manufacturers association, ACEA, confirm that the UK has cemented its position as Europe’s second largest new car market, behind Germany. Buyers in this country registered 292,731 more cars than the Italians and 418,558 more than the French last year.
And while Italy and France saw registrations drop 5.9 per cent and 4.9 per cent, the UK market ended the year up 4.3 per cent to a record total. More than 2.56 million new cars left UK showrooms in 2002.
Commenting on the ACEA figures, SMMT chief executive Christopher Macgowan said, ‘The UK had another exceptional year for new car sales in 2002. And these latest ACEA figures confirm just how well the market performed in contrast to the rest of Europe. As well as being the second largest market in Europe, we were the only country of the major five markets to see an improvement last year, adding more than 100,000 units to the market.’
Note to editors:
New car registrations in the UK reached 2,563,631 units, up 4.3 per cent. The German new car market saw a drop of 2.6 per cent to 3,253,402 units in 2002. Of the other major European markets, Italy was down 5.9 per cent to 2,270,900 units, France fell 4.9 per cent to 2,145,073 and Spain dropped 6.6 per cent to 1,331,878 units.
ACEA is the European automobile manufacturers association. Figures for all European countries can be accessed from the ACEA web site at www.acea.be
