2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 15:44
Despite lower fuel prices and an improving economy, the profits of German car manufacturers are falling in Germany. Volume manufacturers in particular are to blame for the misery.
Discounts and vehicle registrations are increasingly shaping the German new car market. In March, the CAR Discount Index reached its second-highest share since the studies began in 2010. “The trend towards increasing discounts in the German car market is unbroken. The German volume manufacturers have entered the discount business on a large scale,”says Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, head of the CAR Institute at the University of Duisburg-Essen.
VW with almost 30 percent own registrations
While the trend in discounts was down towards the end of last year and the beginning of the new year, the curve in February and March is clearly up again. The number of special campaigns by manufacturers, in which special customer benefits come into play, rose to 433 in March. The large Internet brokers granted discounts of around 20.3 percent in March and the number of self-registrations increased again and averaged 31.0 percent in the third month.
According to the institute, VW alone brought almost 30 percent of new vehicles onto the market as own registrations. Due to its market leadership with almost a quarter of the market share, the Wolfsburg and VW subsidiaries Skoda and Seat clearly shape the picture.
Trend influences buying behavior
In the past 14 months, Opel has even brought 43.2 percent of all new vehicles onto the market as own registrations. The trend of the manufacturers influences the buying behavior of customers who prefer to access their own or daily registrations and like to take the high discount with them. As a result, new cars in Germany continue to lose value.
And the trend will last longer because the spiral cannot simply be turned back. For example, Opel had offered the expiring Corsa with discounts of over 30 percent - but the new model can also be purchased from internet brokers with discounts of up to 24 percent.
Ford relies on discounts
With 44.7 percent, the Rüsselsheim-based company continues to lead the field of self-registration among German manufacturers. Audi follows with 36.5 percent, followed by VW with 29 percent as well as BMW, Mercedes and Ford. With 23.3 percent, the Cologne-based company is the bottom of the list of German manufacturers when it comes to self-registrations, but rely on discounts that can even reach 34 percent. A total of 31.9 percent of 71,190 new cars sold were newly registered in February.
Among the importers, Honda, Mazda and Fiat are at the top of their own registrations with rates between 49 and 65 percent, Dacia with nine percent, Smart (17 percent) and Suzuki (20 percent) have the lowest self-registration rates. (AG)
