May 2015 brought another positive result for new passenger cars in the EU, though the lowest since the beginning of the year (+1.3%), with 1,109,983 units sold, registering the twenty-first consecutive month of growth.
Looking at the main national markets, Spain and Italy posted double digit growth (+14.0% and +10.8%), UK increased by 2.4% while France and Germany dropped by 3.5% and 6.7%. Focusing on Italian market, 146,582 new passenger cars were registered, 14 thousand more compared with May 2014. The overall expansion was mainly driven by EU’s new member states, most of all Czech Republic (+17.6%) and Poland (+11.0%).
From January to May 2015, EU market increased by 6.8% over the same period last year, totalling 5,805,367 new registrations (360 thousand units more compared with 2014). The positive trend was supported by all main national markets: Spain showed the best upturn (+21.7%), followed by Italy (+15,2%, nearly 100 thousand cars), UK (+5.7%), France (+3.8%) and Germany (+3.6%).