At the end of September 2019, commercial vehicle registrations across European Markets dropped for the first time this year (-10.0%), bringing an end to eight months of consecutive growth.
However, nine months into the year,demand for new commercial vehicles remained positive (+4.6%) in the EU, despite the decline in September. With a double-digit increase (10.9%) Germany led this growth, but the four other major markets also posted positive figures so far this year: France (+6.1%), the United Kingdom (+5.1%), Italy (+4.9%) and Spain (+1.5%).
New light commercial vehicles (LCV) up to 3.5t
So far in 2019, the EU market for new vans expanded by 4.4% to reach 1.6 million vehicles registered in total. Each of the EU’s major markets did well during the first nine months of the year: Germany (+11.2%), Italy (+6.9%), France (+5.9%), the United Kingdom (+4.5%) and Spain (+1.9%).
New heavy commercial vehicles (HCV) of 16t and over
From January to September 2019, EU demand for heavy-duty trucks went up by 5.3%, despite the slowdown over the last three months. This growth was largely driven by the United Kingdom (+16.0%), France (+9.2%) and Germany (+8.2%). At the same time, heavy-truck registrations decreased in Italy (-6.7%) and Spain (-1.4%).
New medium and heavy commercial vehicles (MHCV) over 3.5t
Over the first nine months of the year, EU truck registrations increased by 5.7%, even though demand was negative in the third quarter. The United Kingdom (+13.6%), Germany (+10.6%) and France (+8.0%) led this growth, while Italy (-6.4%) and Spain (-2.0%) performed worse than the year before.
Over the same period into 2019, demand for new buses and coaches remained positive (+2.9%). So far this year, growth was largely sustained by Central Europe (+17.1%). Looking at the major Western European markets, France (+2.5%), Spain (+0.7%) and Germany (+0.3%) were the only countries that managed to post modest gains.