Saturday March 13th 2021
Europe left behind in terms of car sales
"If you want to sell in China, you have to build in China"
The People's Republic has significantly increased its lead in new car sales over Western Europe. The economy has left the Corona crisis behind, said auto expert Dudenhöffer. Europe's weaknesses in fighting pandemics will have consequences for the car location, he warns.
In the first two months of this year, China was able to significantly increase its lead over Europe in terms of car sales. This is confirmed by a study by the Duisburg-based CAR-Center Automotive Research, which is available to the newspapers of the "Funke Mediengruppe".
While 1.52 million cars were sold in Europe in January and February, it was 3.96 million vehicles in China, according to the study. A year ago, 1.99 million vehicles were sold in Europe in the same period and only 1.6 million in China.
"In China never before in the first two months of a year have such high car registration numbers been achieved as in 2021," writes the head of the study, Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, according to the "Abendblatt". This is a clear sign that China has left the corona pandemic behind economically, while Europe is still very deeply in crisis.
In Germany alone, a quarter fewer vehicles were sold in January and February than in the same period last year, namely only around 364,000 instead of the 486,000 cars from the previous year, according to the "Abendblatt". Other Western European countries were therefore even more affected.
New car sales fell by around 46 percent in Portugal and Spain, and by 40 percent in Denmark. According to the data, Ireland got off better among the EU countries – with a minus of eleven percent. According to the study, Norway was the only Western European country to record an increase in car sales of 20,988 vehicles – five percent more than in the same period of the previous year.
"By 2022 at the latest, China's car market will be twice as big"
"Europe is still many years away from returning to the sales results before Corona," writes Dudenhöffer according to "Funke Mediengruppe". This also has consequences for the production sites. According to CAR calculations, the balance between total sales and production in China in 2019 was 99 percent.
"If you want to sell cars in China, you have to build them in China," writes the CAR director. "The clear weaknesses in the fight against pandemics in Europe will thus further weaken Germany and Europe as an automotive location in the future." By 2022 at the latest, China's car market will be twice as large as the European market, predicts Dudenhöffer.
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