A total of 146,974 new registrations were recorded last month in the EU, up by 9.1% compared to April last year. However, compared to April 2008, overall new commercial vehicles registrations were down by 37.3%.

Four months into the year, the EU registered 579,192 new commercial vehicles, or 1.2% more than over the same period a year ago, and 36.7% less than in 2008.

The light commercial vehicle segment was the main contributor to the positive results in April, recording 124,704 new registrations, or 13.7% more than a year ago. Major markets all posted growth, from +34.5% in Spain and +31.2% in France, making it the largest market in April, to 19.2% in Germany, 6.4% in the UK and 2.6% in Italy. From January to April, France (+13.1%) remained the biggest market, followed by Italy (+19.8%), the UK (+11.7%), Germany (+9.9%) and Spain (+20.7%). 496,618 new vans were registered over the period, or 6.2% more than in the first four months of 2009.

New heavy truck registrations in April declined by 11.0% in the EU, with 13,421 new vehicles registered. Among the largest markets, only Spain posted growth (+12.1%). The Netherlands (-29.4%), Italy (-16.0%), France (-10.5%), Germany (-6.1%), the UK (-6.1%) and Poland (-5.5%) all saw their markets contract. Four months into the year, the segment amounted to 48,096 new vehicles, representing a decline of 25.7%. With the exception of Poland (+1.5%) and Spain (+1.9%), most of the larger markets recorded negative results, ranging from -42.9% in the Netherlands to -33.0% in France, -32.7% in Belgium, -27.7% in Italy, -26.5% in the UK and -18.5% in Germany.

April results show an 11.3% decrease in the registrations of new trucks which amounted to 19,501 units. Spain (+2.8%) and Poland (+2.4%) performed equally and posted growth while the remaining major markets lost ground compared to last year. France and Germany saw their registrations drop by 3.7% and 6.6% respectively while the UK (-17.2%) and Italy (-17.6%) recorded a double-digit downturn. While Poland remained stable (+0.3%) from January to April, all the other important markets were down, from -2.4% in Spain to -41.1% in the Netherlands. Germany (-13.8%), France (-27.0%) and the UK (-22.5%) were the largest markets. Truck registrations amounted to 71,840 units, decreasing by 21.9% compared to last year.