New passenger car registrations increased by 16.8 percent in October

shares in this article

FRANKFURT (Dow Jones) — The German car market continued to catch up in October. As reported by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), the number of new passenger car registrations increased by 16.8 percent to 208,642. In the course of the year so far, however, there was still a minus of 5.5 percent compared to the previous year to 2.08 million vehicles.

The German brands could mostly increase their sales in October. With an increase of almost 95 percent, Audi almost doubled. Volkswagen achieved an increase of 45.9 percent, Mercedes increased sales by 18.5 percent. Competitor BMW, on the other hand, had to cope with a drop in sales of 13.9 percent, while Opel sales collapsed by a fifth.

“After the record low in the previous year, the past month was still the second weakest October in history,” said Rainhard Zirpel, President of the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (VDIK). Strong growth cannot hide this either. “The level of new registrations is still far below the long-term average and is also being supported by the reduction in the order backlog.” The market share of international manufacturers was a good 39 percent in the first ten months.