BELGIUM: GM a gainer in Europe's January market

Times may be tough at home but GM is enjoying significant market share and volume gains in Europe according to January European car sales figures released by the European carmakers' organisation ACEA. GM is hoping that its European unit will turn a profit in 2007.

The ACEA figures confirm earlier national car market figures released by JD_Power that show a year-on-year contraction in the German market due to a VAT change and gains elsewhere reflecting an additional sales day.

New car sales in Europe increased to 1.29m units in January from 1.27m units a year earlier (+1.1%) - but Western Europe recorded a gain of just 0.4%. New EU member states recorded a gain of 16.6% over last year, to stand at 60,100 units.

GM Group sales in Europe rose by 7.3% to 126,449 units, helped by the impact of the new Corsa model as well as still strong sales under its low-cost Chevrolet brand (up 8.3%). GM share was up to 10.3% against 9.7% in the same month last year.

However, Toyota continued to show impressive growth in January, it's sales (including Lexus) up by 20.2% to 76,649 units, share up to 6.3% against 5.2% last year.

Another notable January gainer was Fiat Auto, sales up 4.8% to 108,103 units (Alfa Romeo sales 9.3% ahead of last year).

Sales at market leading Volkswagen Group declined by 3.8% to 239,089 units, as Volkswagen brand sales plummeted by 9% to 120,988 units. But there was some good news for VW with Skoda up by 14% over last year.

Renault recorded a very sizeable sales drop of 7.9% and share was down to 8% against 8.7% last year.

In contrast, Slovak and Slovenian markets saw their results decline (–6.3% and –1.3%) respectively.