European Union car sales fell to the lowest level for a January, with Ford Motor Co. and PSA Peugeot Citroen posting the biggest drops, as economic contractions in the southern part of the region widened to Germany and France.
Registrations dropped 8.7 percent to 885,159 vehicles last month from 969,219 cars a year earlier, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, or ACEA, said in a statement.
The figure was the lowest start to the year since the group began tracking sales in 1990, it said.
Carmakers are struggling to end losses in Europe that Fiat SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne has estimated at an industrywide $6.68 billion in 2012.
Ford, whose Europe-wide sales fell 26 percent in January, and Peugeot are among manufacturers in the region planning a combined 30,000 job cuts and five plant shutdowns. Sales fell 8.6 percent in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, and 15 percent in France, the second-biggest among the 17 nations using the euro.
