After the promising +4.0% recorded in July, in August 2017 demand for new commercial vehicles remained stable across Europe (+0.01%), totaling 151,047 units sold. Looking at the 5 major markets, Spain and France grew with double-digit numbers (+20.5% and +14.5% respectively), while UK and Germany slowed down (-1,7% and -2.1%), but the worst news was the significant fall of the Italian market (-22.9%, with 10,881 registrations, over 3 thousand less than in August 2016).
During the last month, bus and coach segment expanded considerably (+17.8%), pushed by the good performance of Spain and Italy, while light commercial vehicle registrations reached the same level of August 2016 (+0.1%). On the other hand, heavy trucks and trucks fell slightly (-2.2% and -2.9% respectively), influenced by the decline of Italian and British markets.
From January to August 2017 commercial vehicle registrations in the EU increased by 3.7%, totaling nearly 1.6 million units (1,556,168). Among the main national markets, Spain performed the best (+15.3%), followed by France (+7.4%), Italy (+2.2%, with 132,430 vehicles registered, about 2.8 thousand over the same period last year) and Germany (+1.8%), while demand contracted in the UK (-2.6).