German car market continues to buck crisis
BERLIN, May 4 — New car registrations in Germany, a key gauge of demand in one of the most important sectors of Europe’s biggest economy, rose three per cent in April, official data showed yesterday.
The German market continued a rebound begun in March, and contrasted sharply with a 22 per cent decline in new car registrations in Spain, an 18 per cent drop in Italy and a 1.6 per cent fall in France.
In the first four months of the year, sales of new cars in Germany rose two per cent, the German federal motor transport authority calculated.
Exports declined 14 per cent in April to 323,000 units while production fell 10 per cent to 425,600 units — grim figures owing in part to the fact that more and more of the models sold in the booming Chinese market are built locally and thus cannot be counted as German-made.
German automakers, with the notable exception of General Motors unit Opel, are thriving due to growth in emerging markets and the relatively strong state of the national economy in the face of the ongoing eurozone crisis.
Volkswagen saw an 86 per cent rise in net profit in the first quarter to €3.2 billion (RM12.6 billion), Daimler reported a 20 per cent increase during the same period to €1.4 billion and BMW a 18 per cent hike to €1.35 billion. — AFP-Relaxnews
