European Car Sales Fall In October

FRANKFURT, November 18, 2002; Reuters writer Nick Tattersal reported that fewer Europeans bought new cars in October, with luxury brands in particular seeing slower sales, according to registration data released Friday, but analysts said the industy's regional downturn was beginning to stabilise.

Brussels-based auto association ACEA said western European new car registrations fell 2.2 percent compared with October 2001, and said registrations in the year so far were down 3.6 percent -- less of a fall than many analysts had expected.

"Things are looking a bit better than a few months ago," said analyst Juergen Pieper at Bankhaus Metzler. "We have seen signs of stabilisation for some months now in Germany in particular, which has been weak for a long time."

New registrations in Germany, Europe's biggest car market, fell 1.1 percent compared with October 2001, slower than the 2.5 percent decline seen over the first 10 months as a whole.

The figures support recent comments by UK forecaster JD Power-LMC, which said the car market decline in western Europe appeared to be slowing, with new car sales falling less sharply in October than in the year so far.

But luxury carmakers appeared to have fared the worst, with BMW's core brand seeing a 9.1 percent fall in October registrations, although stellar sales of its Mini model meant the decline at the group as a whole was just 0.1 percent.

Analysts attributed the fall in BMW-brand registrations to strong year-ago sales of the newly-released 3-series estate wagon, which was newly released this time last year.

Key rival Mercedes saw a three percent fall in October registrations, while Audi, the luxury unit of volume producer Volkswagen, saw a 5.3 percent decline.

The DJ pan-European auto stocks index was down 1.15 percent by 1630 GMT, underperforming a broadly flat FTSE Eurotop 300 index. DaimlerChrysler and BMW were among the sector's sharpest fallers, down 2.1 percent and 1.6 percent respectively.

Japanese the winners

The biggest winners in October were Japanese carmakers, who saw their market share rise to 10.8 percent from 9.5 percent last year.

Registrations of new cars built by Mazda Motor Corp. rocketed up 54.6 percent, while Toyota Motor Corp saw a 9.8 percent rise.

DaimlerChrysler AG, Ford Motor Co., and General Motors Corp. all saw a slight decline in October registrations, although their respective market shares remained stable.

Troubled Italian carmaker Fiat, which is cutting thousands of jobs in an effort to stem a financial crisis and return to profit by 2004, saw its market share fall to 8.2 percent from 9.5 percent in the month last year, as sales fell 16.2 percent to 96,201 vehicles.

Thousands of Fiat workers staged strikes Friday, blocking the port of Messina in a bid to pressure the group and the Italian government into softening Fiat's plans to lay off 8,100 workers and shutter two plants. Its shares fell 1.35 percent 8.39 euros.

Among the French manufacturers, PSA Peugeot Citroen outperformed rival Renault SA, lifting its market share by 0.8 percentage points compared with a 0.6-percentage point decline at Renault.

Shares in both Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen were largely flat in late Friday trade.