Sales of new commercial vehicles in the European Union almost doubled last month from a year ago. The huge increase has everything to do with the outbreak of the corona crisis. As a result, sales were very low in March last year.
According to the European automotive industry organization ACEA, a total of 204,046 vans, trucks and buses were registered. In March last year it was still 104,480 vehicles. Especially in large markets such as France, Italy and Spain, sales rose sharply. In the Netherlands, more company cars were also sold with 8,828 units, but compared to the same month last year, this was ‘only’ an increase of 17 percent.
In February, commercial vehicle sales in the EU already showed signs of recovery. That month, annual sales rose by more than 1 percent. During the corona crisis, entrepreneurs seemed more willing to make substantial expenditure on their vehicle fleet. Like many other sectors, the auto industry suffered badly from the corona crisis last year. Due to economic uncertainty, the demand for vehicles fell sharply. According to ACEA, commercial vehicle sales fell by almost a fifth in the whole of 2020.
In the Netherlands, sales of company cars in 2020 fell below the European average, as was shown earlier. This was a decline of 23 percent. A total of 71,502 commercial vehicles were registered in the Netherlands in 2020, according to ACEA. A greater shrinkage than in passenger cars. More than 20 percent less of these were sold in the Netherlands than a year earlier.