Romania saw one of the EU’s biggest drops in new passenger car registrations in August this year compared to the same month in 2011. Registrations fells by a whopping 42.3 percent, the second biggest reduction in the EU after Greece’s 46.7 percent drop. When comparing January – August 2012 to the same period last year there was a more modest fall in registrations, down 9.4 percent and only slightly larger than the average 7.1 percent drop across the EU.

August appears to have been disastrous for local car registrations; figures for July 2012 against July 2011 show a 29.4 percent drop. Meanwhile, for the first half of this year compared to the same period in 2011, the fall in registrations was just 2.3 percent, much better than the EU average, which showed a 6.9 percent reduction in registrations for the period.

Looking at registrations by manufacturer there were many double digit drops in August 2012 against August 2011 and January – August this year versus the same period in 2011. One of the few positive results came from Romania’s own Dacia cars, which recorded a 16 percent increase on August 2011. Kia also went against the trend, posting increases in registrations for August this year compared to August 2011 and for the first seven months of 2012 versus the same period last year. Land Rover also performed well and helped the Jaguar Land Rover group into positive territory.

The major manufacturers recorded falls across the board. PSA Group (Peugeot and Citroen), Renault Group, GM Group, Ford and Fiat Group all recorded double digit drops both month against same month last year and first seven months this year versus the same period in 2011. VW Group, Toyota Group and Nissan saw more modest falls.

Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com

photo source: sxc.hu