An increase in sales of new cars in the EU of 218.6% in April compared to the previous March and 24.4% for the quarter compared to the same period in 2020, according to the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA). In April, 862,226 new cars were registered in the EU, compared to 270,651 in April 2020, while in the first 4 months their number last April reached 3,422,439, compared to 2,750,659 a year earlier.
Bulgaria, which is traditionally far from the strong markets for new cars in the European Union, reports more than excellent results and at the same time quite close to the average for the 27 Member States. While in April 2020 (the month following the first lockdown in our country) the concluded deals were only 824, in April 2021 they were already 2400 – an increase of 191.3 percent.
For the whole quarter the increase is more modest – by 18.3%. But it is clear how exactly last month it pushed the market forward with its 2400 sales, as for the whole quarter we had 7984 deals, and in the same period last year 6751 units, and it should be noted that in the first 3 months of 2020 In fact, there was no drop in demand, as the crisis had not yet occurred.
What has been achieved is the first signal that the European economy is already seeing the light in the tunnel, and it is quite bright. Sales of new cars are one of the main measures of the state of the business. In crises, this market is usually among the first to react and shrink accordingly. This was also the case at the beginning of last year, when the spread of the coronavirus reached a pandemic scale, led to the first lockdowns and collapsed the market for new cars. Last month, however, things looked drastically different for him. After a year of almost constant declines, in March 2021 the first increase in sales was reported. And not small at all – 87% on average for Europe. But in some countries the movement was not so noticeable and even minimal, as a result of which for the whole first quarter they were even in the red. However, the ensuing month of April paints a radically different picture with an unprecedented surge in new car sales in the EU and some European countries outside the Community, unparalleled even after the last global economic and financial crisis in 2008.
In neighboring Romania, with which we are always compared and where the market for new cars has always been stronger, also reported growth in April compared to March, but much more modest than ours – 58.8%. And when compared to the four quarters, they are even minus 14.5 percent. From another point of view, however, the northern neighbors continue to buy more new cars than us. In April the transactions with them were 6862, and for the period January-April this year. – 27 624.
Our richer southern neighbor – Greece, performs even better than Bulgaria even in times of crisis. Last month, 10,198 new cars were purchased there, compared to 2,434 a year earlier, or an increase of 319%. For the first 4 months of the year the growth was 41.2 percent, and the number of transactions increased from 23,824 between January and April 2020 to 33,637 during the same period this year.
The absolute record holder in the EU is Italy (traditionally the third largest market for new cars in the EU), where deals increased by almost 3,277% – from 4,295 in April 2020 to 145,033 cars last month.
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