EU's best-selling car brands: new registrations August 2019 & 2020

Volkswagen was the best-selling car brand in August 2020, based on new registrations in the European Union. That said, Volkswagen's car sales declined by almost a quarter year-on-year.

Signs of recovery after slump

The European car market contracted significantly between March and August 2020 with car sales in the 27 European markets tumbling to its lowest level in April at 270,682 units before bouncing back to around 580,000 in May and almost 1.1 million in July, just six percent lower than 2019's figures. That month, the worst-hit countries include Austria, Hungary and Romania, where car sales declined by more than 44 percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, Germany returned to its position as the largest market for passenger cars in Europe after being briefly overtaken by France in June. Italy was the third largest market for EU car sales with almost 132,500 units sold in one month. As the brand with the highest market share in Germany, Volkswagen also managed to keep its leading position in the EU car market.

Sales lost during pandemic

During the first half of 2020, customers in the 27 European Union member states bought more than 2.6 million fewer vehicles than during the same time period one year earlier, a decline of almost 40 percent. Some marques, including PSA's Opel and Vauxhall brands and Volkswagen Group's namesake brand, reported lost monthly sales of more than 30,000 units. In relative terms, Daimler's Smart brand suffered the most with a contraction of 84 percent in June.