German Cars Market in October 2023 grows for the 8th month this year, with new registrations at 217,905 (+4.9%). YTD figures at 2.34 million are up 13.6% from the prior year.
Market Trend and Outlook
Germany is the fourth largest economy in the world after the United States, China and Japan and the largest economy in Europe. It is the third largest export nation globally: With 70% the service sector contributes the largest part to the country’s GDP.
On an annual basis, the economy is now projected to shrink by 0.4% in 2023. This is a downward revision compared to the 0.2% growth projected in the Spring Forecast. A weak overall outturn for consumption and a decline in construction investment are forecast to negatively impact growth, despite support from an uptick in equipment investment. While weak external demand depresses exports, net exports are expected to contribute positively to growth due to falling imports.
Despite the last few months performing worse than in the earlier part of 2023 the German Car Market still maintains strong momentum. In October 2023 it grew for the 8th month this year, with new registrations at 217,905 (+4.9%). YTD figures at 2.34 million are up 13.6% from the prior year.
Looking at cumulative data up to October 2023 brand-wise, Volkswagen sold the most cars at 426,644 (+11.2%), followed by Mercedes at 232,960 (+24.1%) in front of Audi at 205,396 (+21.4%) and BMW with 187,296 sales (+11.3%).
Skoda ranks in 5th position with 138,373 sales (+15.0%), followed by Opel at 119,588 sales (+4.5%), Ford at 100,375 (-3.0%) and Hyundai with 86,978 new registrations (+3.5%)
Seat jumps 4 spots into 9th position with 70,844 sales (+24.5%), followed by Fiat closing the top 10 with 65,305 new registrations (+9.9%).
Looking at specific models the Volkswagen Golf is the best seller despite losing 7.8% in year-on-year sales, followed by the Volkswagen T-Roc up 19.6% from the previous year.
Medium-Term Market Trend
The German car market is the largest in Europe and has had many ups and downs in the past decade. Starting from 2010 to 2013 the German market remained between 2.6 million ant 2.8 million, with year-on-year variations not exceeding 7% in both directions. In 2014 started a 4 year uptrend that brought all-time highs for 3 years in a row, reaching a maximum in 2017 at 3.51 million. Between 2018 and 2019 the market grew even higher reaching the 3.6 million mark in 2019.
The arrival of the pandemic in 2020 caused big problems in European economies and the German car market felt the consequences, falling 19% back under the 3 million level.
After the pandemic the downtrend continued, with the market falling 10% in 2021 and staying relatively flat in 2022 (+1.0%). A combination of factors were behind the industry struggle: the disruption in the global supply chain caused by a lack of raw materials, in particular for the production of microchips and Governments push towards Evs, an expensive alternative for low income consumers. These factors will continue to pull down sales in 2023.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.
