After a 43% decline during August, new car registrations fell again last month - by 32.2% from 96,754 to 65,593 - the lowest monthly total since 1996 and the biggest percentage decline ever recorded for the month of September.

Year to date, at 947,990, sales are 22% lower than after the first nine months of last year, but ahead of the 25% decline forecast for the year end by the Anfac manufacturers association.

Top sellers during the month were the Renault Megane, which sold 3,341, followed by the Citroen C4 (2,953) and the Ford Focus (2,712), which comes out top of the cumulative annual list having shifted 47,907 units.

Plummeting car sales force layoffs
By: thinkSPAIN
Wednesday, September 10, 2008

A sharp decline in new car registrations has forced Ford and GM to announce plans to lay off nearly two thousand workers in Valencia and Zaragoza.

Around 1,300 of the 7,000 workers employed at Ford's plant in Almussafes (photo) will be affected by a decision to cancel the night shift.

At GM's Figueruelas plant in Zaragoza, around 600 of the current workforce of 7,500 are set to lose their jobs as management strives to slash costs and match supply to the new demand conditions.

For their part, Seat bosses are also planning to replace the night shift at their Martorell factory (Barcelona), that employs 500 workers, with an evening shift employing 200. In an effort to keep job cuts to a minimum, shift workers will be put on flexitime.

New car registrations down 43%
By: thinkSPAIN
Monday, September 1, 2008

According to figures jointly released today by the associations of car manufacturers (Anfac) and dealerships (Ganvam), only 58,530 cars and all-terrain vehicles were sold last month, representing a decline of 43% compared with August 2007- the largest percentage decline since January 1993, and the second biggest drop since records began.

Over the first eight months of the year, new car registrations have fallen by nearly a quarter of a million to 882,397 - 21% down on the same period last year.