Throughout this entire region a total of 975,666 new passenger cars were registered in February 2007, a 3.5% dip compared with February 2006 registrations.

The scenario in the U.K. market was in line with this trend, with February 2007’s new car registrations – 73,586 new passenger cars – 3.2% lower than the number recorded a year before. However new car registrations are traditionally low in the U.K. during February due to the March number plate changeover, and it must be pointed out that combined January/February 2007 new car registrations totalled 239,189, a 2.5% increase on 2006 and bucking EU15 trends, where a 1.5% decrease was recorded.

New European Union member states continued their pattern of increasing new car registration numbers. During January/February 2007 this region experienced a 13.1% rise on the previous year with 146,195 new passenger car registrations, and in selected markets there were some huge changes – new car registrations in Estonia were up 43.2% on the previous year, and those in Latvia increased by a significant 89.7% over February 2006 figures.

Vehicles built by the Volkswagen group – Volkswagen, Audi, Seat and Skoda – continued to hold the largest share of the European market, but it was Japanese manufacturers that showed the greatest increase in market share. When comparing February 2007 results with those of February 2006, the Toyota group’s European market share showed a 13.1% increase to 6.4% of the total market, and Honda, although still a small player in Europe, increased its market share by 22% to 1.8% of the total.

The biggest loser during this period was DaimlerChrysler, who suffered a 7.6% decline in sales, mainly due to plummeting registrations of its Smart line, which showed a 52.8% drop in registrations compared with February 2006.