The EU is still in trouble for the near future.
While the EU economy is still on life-support, light vehicle sales during December increased in most major Western markets. The Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate or SAAR was 12.3 million. This was the best performance of 2013.
However, the UK market was the only major market to see significant growth last year. Overall, car sales dropped -1.9%.
The biggest economy in Western Europe, Germany, suffered a sales decline to under 3 million units (-4.2%) for the year. France and Italy were also lower on an annual basis, with Italy seeing selling rates at around 1.3 million per year. The Spanish market was, arguably, better, but at 720,000 units it still looks weak by historical standards, according to consultancy LMC, the source of the data.
