World August 2017: South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific lift global sales up 4.1%

Fiat Argo – Brazil sales up almost 18% help global figures up 

According to an article by WardsAuto.com, global new vehicle sales are up 4.1% year-on-year in August to 7.36 million vehicles (that includes commercial vehicles), bringing the year-to-date tally up 3% or 1.79 million to 61.88  million units after eight months.

Europe sales are up 5.6% to 1.27 million (again these include light commercials so are higher than the figures we report at BSCB), lifting the year-to-date total up 4.4% to 13.78 million units. In August, Spain is up 14.2% to 87.000, France up 10.4% to 134.000, Germany up 2.9% to 284.000 and Italy up 9.1% to 94.000.

World sales Aug 2016 – Aug 2017. Source: WardsAuto.com

South America sees the largest improvement this month with a 17.6% uptick to 381.000 units, thanks to a 17.7% surge in Brazil to 217.000 sales while Chile is up 43.5% to 36.000. Year-to-date, new car deliveries in South America are up 11.5% to 2.58 million.

Sales in the Asia-Pacific region are up 5.6% to 3.47 million, China is up 5.3% to 2.19 million, India up 15.4% to 364.000 and passing Japan up 5.5% to 355.000. Year-to-date Asia-Pacific is up 4.5% to 28.31 million units.

North America is the only region to see a year-on-year sales decline, and this for the third consecutive month, at -1.2% to 1.83 million units, mainly due to the U.S. declining 1.7% to 1.51 million while Canada is up 7% to 187,000 and Mexico down 6.5% to 129.000. Overall, North America sales are down 1.9% so far in 2017 to less than 14 million units, the lowest 8-month volume for the region since 2014.