Sales of new cars throughout the whole of Europe fell by 8.7%  to 1.16 million units in May. The decrease in three of the largest markets – France, Germany and Italy – outweighed growth seen in many other countries. These three markets had been sustained by scrappage premiums in 2009. Despite this second consecutive month of falling sales, the overall figure for the first five months of the year is still up by 2.3% compared to the same period last year. Amongst the most extreme cases, Portugal managed to return its level of 2008 in May (2009 having already been 5% down on 2008 in the month), with sales up by 46% on 2009 at 19,000 units, while crisis-torn Greece was down by 54% at just 12,000 units. The top performer, however, was Ireland – up by 70% at almost 9,000 units. Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria were all substantially down, by 66%, 53% and 44% respectively. In terms of brands, Volkswagen remains clearly in the lead in Europe, although Renault made the strongest move, now occupying second place despite the poor month in overall market terms.

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