Brussels, 18 January 2022 – In December 2021, passenger car registrations across
the European Union declined by 22.8% to 795,295 units, marking the sixth consecutive
month of decline.



New passenger car registrations in the EU

In December 2021, passenger car registrations across the European Union declined
by 22.8% to 795,295 units, marking the sixth consecutive month of decline. Most of
the region’s markets faced double-digit drops, including the four major ones: Italy (-27.5%),
Germany (-26.9%), Spain (-18.7%) and France (-15.1%). In fact, the only EU car markets
that expanded last month were Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia and Slovenia.

Overall in 2021, sales of new cars in the EU fell by 2.4% to 9.7 million units, despite the
record low base of comparison of 2020. This fall was the result of the semiconductor shortage
that negatively impacted car production throughout the year, but especially during the second
half of 2021. Indeed, last year total EU car registrations were still 3.3 million units below
pre-crisis sales in 2019.

Looking at the full year for the four major EU markets, only Germany posted a decline (-10.1%)
in 2021. By contrast, Italy saw the highest increase (+5.5%), followed by Spain (+1.0%) and
France (+0.5%) with modest growth.