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Toyota, Honda Sales in Europe Up in Jan.
Associated Press 02.15.07, 11:20 AM ET

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Japan's Toyota and Honda saw sales of new cars in Europe surge in January while German carmakers' sales slowed down as a new sales tax kept shoppers out of car showrooms in Europe's largest economy, according to statistics released Thursday by manufacturers' association ACEA.

Overall sales were up 1.1 percent from a year ago, with Europeans buying 1,285,104 cars over the month.

But German sales fell by 10.5 percent as value-added tax climbed to 19 percent on Jan. 1 and buyers brought forward purchases to the end of 2006. German carmakers were the victims with Europe's biggest seller, Volkswagen AG, slipping 3.8 percent and pushing out 239,089 new cars.

German's luxury carmakers were also down - DaimlerChrysler AG (nyse: DCX - news - people ) by 2.3 percent, with BMW AG falling 1.1 percent.

But the figures show better sales in most other major car markets. France was up 1.8 percent, Spain up 2.7 percent, Italy 3.5 percent and Britain 5.2 percent.

Toyota Motor Corp. (nyse: TM - news - people ) saw a bumper month, with sales up 20.5 percent to 82,404 and Honda (nyse: HMC - news - people ) up 15.5 percent to 24,629.

U.S. automakers also did well as General Motors Corp. (nyse: GM - news - people ) increased sales a strong 7.6 percent and Ford climbed 2.2 percent. Fiat (nyse: FIA - news - people ) SpA kept up its comeback, surging 5.2 percent.

Europe's No. 2, PSA Peugeot (other-otc: PEUGY.PK - news - people ) Citroen SA, rose slightly, by 0.5 percent but fellow French company Renault (other-otc: RNSDF.PK - news - people ) SA slumped 7.5 percent.

 

Anecdotal evidence would seem to back this up. The Honda factory in Swindon, UK and the Toyota plant in Derby, UK are all taking on staff and output is up. However, the Germans seem to be doing OK, the UK is now the biggest market for Audi outside Germany, and you can't move for BMW 3 series.

 

it is pretty big news.. Yaris already had record sales last year, same as Rav4.

We are still out of Rav4's in Europe, and customers have to special order them...