EU commercial vehicle registrations up 16.4% in May – ACEA

LONDON (ICIS)–The EU’s commercial vehicles registrations went up 16.4% in May year on year, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) said on Thursday.

May represented the 17th consecutive month of increases, according to ACEA. May’s registrations totalled 187,134 units.

In January-May registrations stood at 946,128 vehicles, up 13.5% year on year.

“Growth [in May, year on year] was sustained across all segments of the commercial vehicle market. Looking at the largest markets, Italy recorded the highest upturn (35.9%) followed closely by France (27.2%) and Spain (17.3%),” said ACEA.

The other two largest markets in the EU, Germany and the UK, posted more moderate increases during May, year on year, of 10.8% and 2.2%.

The 13.5% increase during the January-May period, year on year, was also supported by the five largest EU markets as all posted increases – Italy (up 30.6%), Spain (13.9%), France (13.1%), Germany (10.2%) and the UK, with an increase of 3.8%.

The automotive industry is a major global consumer of petrochemicals which contributes more than a third of the raw material costs of an average vehicle. ICIS tracks the movement of petrochemical raw material costs in automotive production both globally and regionally with the weighted ICIS Basket of Automotive Petrochemicals (IBAP).

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