With the effects of the global credit crisis still being felt and the ongoing euro currency problems, Germany’s car market has yet to recover fully from a late Noughties crash, despite the country’s reputation as a bastion in the euro area.
Jonathan Minter reports
Between 2006 and 2013 German new car registrations fell by 515,530 in total, despite Germany’s GDP rising over the period.
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This overall figure masks a significant jump in registrations in 2009, where the 3,807,175 cars sold was the third-highest amount recorded since European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) records began in 1990.
This was followed by a disastrous 2010, where car sales dropped below the 300,000 mark for the first time in ACEA’s records, a feat since repeated in 2013 as the German market struggled to recover.
Total EU car sales have seen an even more dramatic fall to 2013, however, falling over 3.5 million in the period, and falling every year since 2008.
EU new car registrations, which were 15,423,309 in 2006 and rose another 150,000 in 2007, stood at just 11,850,905 in 2013.
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By GlobalDataAs a result Germany now makes up almost a quarter (24.91%) of all EU registrations, up from 22.49% in 2006, despite its own market shrinking over the same period.
UK comparison
By way of comparison, UK figures also fell overall in the period, however the drop was not as dramatic, and the UK has posted consecutive growth, year-on-year, since 2011.
In contrast to the collapse of German sales between 2009 and 2010, with the country yet to surpass its 2008 total sales, UK sales experienced a gradual decline in sales to 2011, since when they have picked up again. As a result, UK sales in 2013 surpassed the 2008 total.
This has also meant that while Germany’s share of the EU car market rose 2.42%, the UK’s share grew from 15.20% to 19.11% or to nearly one-fifth of total EU car registrations.
The two countries now account for 44% of the EU market, up from 37.7% in 2006.
Looking at Germany in 2013 on a month-by-month basis, H1 appeared particularly brutal, with double-digit falls in February (-10.5%) and March (-17.1%), while May and January approached this, with 9.9% and 8.6% falls, respectively.
The only month which managed year-on-year growth in H1 was April, which recorded 3.8% growth to 284,444.
There was improvement in H2, with July growing 2.1%, October growing 2.3% and December even managing 5.4% growth. Despite falls of 5.5% in August, 1.2% in September and 2% in November, the growth in the other three months meant the German market actually grew by 0.11% in H2, to 1,449,721 registrations.
This positive trend continued into 2014, with German new car registrations for January up to 205,996, a 7.2% year-on-year rise. While this is definitely a positive, it’s worth pointing out before unfurling the banners that this is still below the 211,056 and 210,195 figures recorded in January 2011 and 2012, respectively.
While a 7.2% growth in January on the back of December’s 5.4% growth would suggest Germany’s car market could be leaving economic malaise behind, there’s still a long way to go before it returns to the sort of figures posted in 2006.
Despite the fall in registrations to 2012, the appeal of German brands abroard appears intact as production figures have remained almost flat over the period, falling just 10,049 between 2006 and 2012.
German brand intact
Given the fall in domestic consumption, this means German car exports rose by almost 400,000 in the period (2013 figures were not available for production data).
Germany’s biggest car export market was, unsurprisingly, the rest of Europe, which bought 2,454,024 in 2012, down from 2,729,928, a decline of 10.1% in the year.
While this figure is for all European countries, isolating non-EU countries in the continent reveals a growth of 4.3%, to 422,795 cars.
The UK – which imports more German cars than any other country – increased its sales by 6.3% to 689,437. German exports to France, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain all fell by double-digit percentages.
The number of German cars exported to Africa grew 7.5% in 2012, to 82,117, while the number rose 6.09% to 690,404 in Asia. The largest Asian market, China, shrank by 1.1% in the year to 284,704.
The number of German cars exported to the Americas in 2012 was 801,381, up from 693,465 in 2011. This growth was driven by North America, where the US, the second-largest importer of German cars, received 624,557 cars, up 26.84%, Canadian sales grew 13.9% and Mexico’s, by 26.84% – the largest increase of any major economy.
Data on the types of cars being sold in Germany is also only available to 2012. A spike in market share for the small and lower-medium vehicle segments in 2009 came in the same year new German registrations ballooned, suggesting these models drove the growth. Since then, both segments have been on a downward trend.
In contrast, the upper-medium and executive segments have been steadily growing market share since 2009, with the upper-medium segment surpassing its 2008 market share figure in 2012. Between 2008 and 2012, both the upper-medium and small car segments grew in market share by between 1-2%, while the lower-medium and executive segments fell by the same amount.
The German preference for domestic brand cars continued, with 70.8% of all new registrations in 2012 being German, exactly the same percentage as in 2011.
Unsurprisingly, the best-selling brands were all German, with Volkswagen selling more than the second and third-largest brands – BMW and Mercedes – combined. Audi was the fourth-largest brand, and Opel was fifth. Between 2011 and 2012, all French and all but two Japanese car manufacturers saw their market share continue to decline, with Korean brands by and large taking their place.
Renault, the largest non-German brand in Germany, saw its sales slide 11.2% between 2011 and 2012, to 105,836. Toyota, the largest Japanese car maker, managed to grow slightly, up 0.8% to 83,834, making it the only Japanese brand with over 10,000 German sales to grow over the year.
Of the major car manufacturing nations, South Korea was the only one to increase sales in Germany. As a result the market share for South Korean cars increased from 4.07% to 5.07% in a single year.
Hyundai, the largest South Korean brand in Germany by registration, increased its sales by 16.1% between 2011 and 2012, to 100,875, within 5,000 of Renault. Kia registrations grew from 42,065 to 54,798. SSangYong sales almost doubled,
reaching 656.
