The automotive industry has yet taken advantage of the premium for scrap in February. The new car sales rose in February from 3.2% a year, said Tuesday the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA). Just over one million vehicles were registered in Europe (EU and Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, but not Cyprus and Malta).

The increase in sales to 7.9% on the first two months of the year, ACEA said. But compared to pre-crisis in January and February 2008, registrations were down by 15% and 16%, said she.

The differences between the different European markets have increased compared to January. Countries like France, Italy and the UK still benefiting from the effects of scrapping bonus with dramatic increases in registrations respectively 18.2%, 20.6% and 26.4%. Spain has seen its sales off by 47%.In contrast, Germany, which has exhausted its position to support the sector, recorded the worst results in Europe, with a fall of 19.5%.

This buoyant market at arm's length by car scrapping has been particularly successful with French brands payday advance lender . Renault (Renault and Dacia brands) has seen its sales jump 30% on a year to 109,663 units, the PSA group (Peugeot and Citroen) of 18.4% to 149,128 units. The Volkswagen Group (Volkswagen, Audi, Seat and Skoda), European champion in the sector has recorded its share of sales decreased by 1.7% to 207,969 vehicles.

Renault in third place

Other brands, Fiat sees sales increase of 12.4%. In the high-end, sales of BMW rose 6.3% thanks to the Mini (+22.7%) while those of Daimler sank 9.7%.Among non-European groups, Toyota saw its sales fall by 7.6%, General Motors (Opel, Chevrolet, Saab) of 2.8% and 13% of Suzuki. In contrast, Nissan rose 32.1%, Korean Kya 26.8% and 24.5% of Hyundai.

Vokswagen The group maintains its first place in the European rankings, with 20.1% market share. PSA is in second place (14.4%). In third place, its good results enable Renault (10.8%) than Ford (10.1%).

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