Europe car sales fall for 6th straight month

European car sales fell for the sixth straight month in September, carmakers' association ACEA said on Friday, as demand continued to suffer from the loss of scrappage schemes and the uneven recovery dimmed confidence.
Automakers in Europe have been braced for pain as the cash-for-clunkers incentive schemes that many countries introduced to spur demand during the financial crisis expire and public spending cuts loom to cut government deficits.
All major markets contracted, ACEA said, with an 8.2% dip in France and an 18.9% fall in Italy as this year's figures are compared to the strong sales seen last year when many scrapping schemes were still in force.
Germany, Europe's largest car market, whose scrapping scheme ran out at the beginning of September last year, saw a 17.8% dip.
The German car market should return to growth towards the end of 2010, when the aftershock from the end of the government scrapping scheme should have worked its way through the system, industry association VDA said at the start of October.
Car registrations fell 9.6% in September across the European Union, with a total of 1,227,645 units registered, ACEA said in a statement. In the first three quarters of the year new car sales fell 4.3% in the EU, ACEA said.
Volkswagen group sales fell 5% year-on-year in September, while PSA Peugeot Citroen group sales fell 7.3%. Ford sales showed a 20.1% drop and Toyota Motor Corp sales fell 21.3%.
Daimler group sales were up 6.5% and Mitsubishi Motors Co saw a 38.4% increase.