European car sales rise despite VW emissions row

European car sales rose 6.3% to 1,093,565 vehicles in January, industry data showed, even as Europe’s largest car maker Volkswagen saw registrations of VW-branded cars fall 4% in the wake of a diesel emissions scandal.

VW’s rivals Ford and General Motors’s Opel-Vauxhall posted rises in sales of 11.4% and 12.4% respectively, according to car registration data for EU and European Free Trade Association countries.

Volkswagen as a whole saw sales rise 1% in January, buoyed by a 14% jump in registrations for its premium Audi division, according to the figures published by European auto industry body ACEA. In the EU, registrations rose to 1,061,150 last month, a 6.2% rise on a year ago and marking the 29th consecutive month of growth, ACEA said.

“When adjusted for working days, January registrations were up 11.6%, year-on-year the second-strongest increase for any month in the past five years,” analysts at Barclays said, noting that January’s sales should not be taken as a projection for the full year. Barclays said it expects sales to grow 3.3% in western Europe this year, slowing from last year’s 8.9%, but remaining above the growth rates of other markets like the US.

Car registrations in Italy and Spain rose 17.4% and 12.1% respectively, while the bigger markets of France, Germany, and the UK posted modest single-digit gains.

* Reuters