The European new car market is down by 10.3% at the mid-point of 2009, according to figures from JATO Dynamics.

Despite the drop, JATO said a 15.7% improvement on the January figure of 26% demonstrates a slow but progressive improvement each month.

Unsurprisingly, the Volkswagen Golf continues to dominate the sales charts with sales up 32.8% on the same month last year and Volkswagen remains the biggest selling brand in Europe.

 

David Di Girolamo, head of JATO Consult, said: “Mid-way through the year is a perfect point to take stock of the overall market and to look for established trends rather than short-term peaks and troughs in the market.

“With localised scrappage incentives now working consistently to improve sales, we can see steady and progressive improvements in new car registrations. It’s impossible to be conclusive, but with the continued roll out of incentive schemes and the possibility of some renewed consumer confidence, it would seem likely that by the end of the year the European car market could more or less recover to 2008 levels.”

Model performance

The Golf has dominated in five of the six months of 2009, with only the second placed Ford Fiesta having borrowed its crown for a single month.

The top four places have not changed in June with Peugeot 207 and Opel/Vauxhall Corsa holding their positions. The lower half of the chart has seen an amount of re-shuffling, with the Peugeot 308 a new entry in 10th position at the expense of the Volkswagen Polo which has now dropped out of the top ten performers as the old model is discontinued and the new Polo is introduced.

To download figures for the top 10 European models click here.

Brand performance

Volkswagen was once again Europe’s top-selling car brand in June, up 12.9% over last year and up a marginal 0.7% year-to-date. Ford is in second position, while Renault has improved considerably from sixth to take third place. Opel/Vauxhall and Fiat round off the top five places.

To download figures for top the 10 European brands click here.

National trends

Germany once again proves to be the leading market in June, up 40.5% on last year and 26.1% YtD. France, Poland and Slovakia are the only other markets to be up year-to-date.

However, many countries across Europe are progressively reducing their market deficits, and as such the overall volumes have improved by 2.8% since last month.

To download new car registration figures for each European country click here.