Passenger car registrations in EU: -3.1 percent in first half of 2019; -7.8 percent in June

In June 2019, new car registrations in the European Union fell by 7.8 percent to 1,446,183 units. To a large extent, this drop can be attributed to a negative calendar effect. On average, June only counted 19 working days across the EU this year, compared to roughly 21 days in 2018. As a result, the five major EU markets all posted declines, especially France (-8.4 percent) and Spain (-8.3 percent).

During the first half of 2019, demand for new passenger cars across the EU was down by 3.1 percent compared to the same period last year, counting 8.2 million registrations in total. With the exception of Germany (+0.5 percent), each of the big EU markets recorded a slight decline so far in 2019.