Spanish car sales witness bad performance in years

There was more bad news for the Spanish car industry with the publication of the sales figures for September on Monday indicating bad performance in the past years. According to the associations of manufacturers (ANFAC) and sales organizations (GANVAN), for the past month 55,572 cars were sold in September, which is 1.3 percent down on the same period in 2010 and the worst performance in terms of sales in the month in the past 15 years. The figures mean that 623,926 cars have been sold in the first nine months, which is 20.7 percent down on the sales figures from last year. Car sales are now at their lowest level in Spain since 1993. Spain's problems of family debt and lack of consumer confidence have been reproduced in the sales figures, as sales of new cars to private individuals fell by 12.3 percent in September, with just 30,299 cars sold. Just 287,660 cars have been bought by individuals in the first nine months of the year. Those figures, have been offset to a certain extent by the sales of new cars to companies, which is rising. Companies and businesses accounted for the sales of 23,456 cars in September, a 15.6-percent increase on 2010, while sales to corporate clients is up overall by 7.4 percent for the year as a whole. Car hire firms also bought more cars in September and have done so in the year as a whole. Meanwhile there are signs of a widening gap between the rich and the poor in Spain given that the sales of luxury cars in the country rose by 148.4 percent in September and has climbed by 114.4 percent over the year. That is contrasted by figures that show the average age of a car on Spanish roads has increased considerably as people postpone the purchase of new vehicles until the economy shows signs of improving. ANFAC and GANVAN warn that unless current trends chance, 42 percent of the cars in Spain will be at least 10 years old by 2012. The increasing age of the cars in circulation brings with it additional problems of safety and also of pollution, given that older cars consume more fuel and are not as ecological as newer models. "We need policies of renovation for the cars in circulation and also structural changes so that Spain has cars that consume less and which are more ecological on the roads," commented ANFAC Director General Luis Valero. Meanwhile Ganvan's President Juan Antonio Sanchez Torres predicted that the sector would again fall short of the 1 million sales mark in 2011 and predicted the year would end with around 820,000 new vehicles having been sold.