Car sales in Europe up in first quarter of the year

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association has said that the car sales in the region were up by around 3.2 percent in the first three months of the year. The group revealed that around 4.13 million cars were sold across Europe in the first quarter.

This is a turnaround from last year when the economic downturn hit the automobile sector leading to low sales. Germany’s Volkswagen AG and Italy’s Fiat Spa were the biggest beneficiaries of this growth. Sales for Peugeot PSA, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. were somewhat flat. Renault on the other hand lost sales in this quarter.

Volkswagen sold the maximum number of cars in this period with sales of 783,818 units. Fiat sales were up by around 16.7 percent to 327,688 units. Peugeot sold 564,171 cars with not much change compared to last year in the same period.

Ford sales were down slightly as they faced poor sales of their Volvo and Jaguar branded cars in the region. Japanese automaker Suzuki was a big gainer with sales rising by almost 30 percent. However, the number of units sold is still minor compared to the bigger players in the region.