European car sales plunged 27 per cent in January to the lowest level in two decades as the global recession and tight credit markets reduced demand for General Motors Corp, Renault SA and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG models.
Registrations fell to 958,517 last month from 1.31 million a year earlier, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said in a statement on Friday.
In 2008, sales fell 7.8 percent, the biggest decline since 1993.
“The markets are even worse than the numbers indicate, because of all the discounting that’s going on,” said Simon Empson, managing director of UK automotive retailing Web site Broadspeed.com.
The January drop was the steepest of a nine-month contraction that caught automakers off guard and forced them to suspend production to clear inventories of unsold vehicles.
