The extra bank holidays this may have proven to be an advantage to car dealers, as motorists took advantage of the extra time off to cash in on new deals.
The bumper crop of customers helped dealers all across the EU to make May the strongest month so far for new car sales. In Italy, May heralded the first rise in automotive sales in almost 14 months.
However whilst new car sales for fleets and businesses were up 10.3 percent on last year, the overall total for sales is still down 1.7 percent.
Different stories are emerging from all the corners of the EU. Whilst Spain saw a drop of 23.3 percent in May sales, Germany grew by almost 22 percent. Strong sales in both France and Germany have been put down to warm weather and extra bank holidays.
Calum Macrae from PwC Autofacts, the company which carries out monthly research into new car sales, said: “There is evidence that the European market be over the worst of its post scrappage blues.
Our overall European sales forecast for the year which remains at 13.7 million is predicated on many markets performing better in the second half of the year, as private sales improve due to weaker scrappage distortion.â€
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