Carlos Ghosn, the head of Renault and Nissan, has been quoted by French daily Le Monde saying there will be no rebound in car markets in Europe and Japan before 2011 despite the scrappage schemes in Europe that encourage car buyers to trade in older cars for new cars. This has tempered the decline and resulted in a quarterly upturn from the last quarter of 2008 but Ghosn predicts that there will be no recovery in car industry in Europe and Japan until at least the first quarter of 2011.
In terms of year-on-year sales figures, May saw the thirteenth straight month of decline in new car sales in Europe, with only Volkswagen AG and Fiat SpA selling more than last year. Renault, France’s No. 2 carmaker said its vehicle sales in Europe declined by 22 percent during the quarter, worse than the overall 17.2 percent decline European car market!
Meanwhile, Nissan UK saw an increase of almost 10% on the UK sales figures from June 2008 as the company took orders for 7,149 new cars compared to 6,574 in June 2008, mainly due the the UK government’s scrappage scheme. The Nissan Qashqai, Nissan Note, Nissan Pixo and Nissan Micra accounted for more than 80% of the Nissan sales orders.
Top five Nissan car sales for June 2009
- Nissan Micra (27% of sales – 1,927 orders)
- Nissan Qashqai (26% of sales – 1,879 orders)
- Nissan Note (23% of sales – 1,672 orders)
- Nissan Pixo (10% of sales – 742 orders)
- Nissan Qashqai +2 (7% of sales – 513 orders)