Spain March car sales slump as trucker strike adds to industry woes
MADRID (Reuters) – New automotive registrations in Spain fell greater than 30% in March as a partial trucker strike delayed deliveries of autos and components and deepened current supply-chain points, trade physique Anfac stated on Friday.
A worldwide semiconductor scarcity and different logistical struggles as economies emerge from the pandemic hunch have dampened deliveries of automobiles globally, resulting in file low gross sales in Europe.
However the scenario is especially extreme in Spain the place hundreds of truckers staged a walkout of greater than two weeks in protest at what they noticed as the federal government’s inaction over hovering gasoline costs.
Anfac stated registrations of recent automobiles have been down 30.2% from a yr earlier and 51% from March 2019, earlier than the pandemic struck. Against this in neighbouring France, registrations fell 19.5% from March 2021 and 35% from March 2019.
Bucking the sturdy downward pattern, electrical automotive registrations rose 17.6% from a yr in the past, albeit from low figures.
Anfac’s Communication Director Noemi Navas stated putting drivers of car-transporter vehicles had severely affected deliveries to clients.
“Along with the raw-material provide disaster and rising vitality costs, manufacturers have hundreds of autos sitting idle in manufacturing tons resulting from distribution difficulties,” she stated in an announcement.
Whereas the organisation careworn supply-side points have been the primary problem, it voiced issues that financial uncertainty within the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may sooner or later weigh on demand too.
(Reporting by Nathan Allen, enhancing by Inti Landauro and David Evans)
