Financial crisis impacts the European car market

Posted Nov 14th 2008 4:32PM by Michael Fowlkes
Filed under: International Markets, Bad News, Products and Services, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), China, Brazil, Russia, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), Market Matters, Eastern Europe, Recession, Financial Crisis

We all know the impact that the current economic slowdown has had on American auto sales, and today we get news that European car sales are also feeling the pain, with auto sales dipping 15% during the month of October.

According to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, or the ACEA, October marks the sixth straight month that new-car registrations have fallen, but things have been much worse since the summer, when concerns of a global recession really started to spread.

General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) was the worst hit major American automaker, which had a 25% decline in sales in October on a year over year basis. Japanese maker, Toyota Motor Company (NYSE: TM) did not fare to much better, with a 24% dip in sales. Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) did a little bit better, with a reported 11.9% decline in October sales. Europe's largest automaker, Volkswagen, held up the best among the majors, with "only" a 7.9% drop.

The major automakers definitely have their hands full. It's been hard enough having to deal with slowdowns in the major American and European markets, but now signs are also pointing to slowdowns in emerging markets that have been able to show strong growth numbers until recently.

Countries such as Russia, Brazil and China are also now showing signs of slowing down.

This is definitely a tough time now for all the car makers, and until consumers start to regain their trust in their respective economies, expect to see more of the same in terms of sales figures.

Tags: auto, auto sales, automakers, AutoSales, Europe, F, Ford, General Motors, GeneralMotors, GM, inthenews, TM, Toyota, volkswagen

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

11-14-2008 @ 5:33PM

william lindblad said...

Peter Cohan should read this. He seems to think that the world stops here. I think that I recall something that was told to Columbus about falling off the edge?

1-14-2009 @ 1:34AM

AKSAHY said...

At the time of financial crises we need to come together united and try to solve the problems which are responsible for such a hazard. We need to overcome it. It is meant to bring calm to the population and markets and display government strength and stability. As a large number of people spend their money in movies, making films, sports, nowadays even on internet many sites offerinternet keno casino for the people interested in gambling but there people lose a large sum of money there in such stuffs which should be minimized as the world is going through a phase where a little wastage of money could be matter of remorse.

1-14-2009 @ 11:00AM

joboutlets said...

I have a very close friend, who graduated from Harvard. Worked for ML for over 8 years, recently he’s been “right sized” too, despite of his outstanding performance and the increasing revenue he generated. OMG, now the banking industry is badly hurt, how long it would take for those financial background guys like him get back to the job market. Banking jobs are not there as much as before as easily seen on http://www.joboutlets.com and other job sites in the region