Last month, 3,177 new registrations were recorded by the Société Nationale de Circulation Automobile (SNCA), which represents a drop of 16.6% compared to November 2020. The worst month of November that has been recorded since 2003.  (Photo: Leo Biewer/Maison Moderne/archives)

Last month, 3,177 new registrations were recorded by the Société Nationale de Circulation Automobile (SNCA), which represents a drop of 16.6% compared to November 2020. The worst month of November that has been recorded since 2003.  (Photo: Leo Biewer/Maison Moderne/archives)

With 3,177 new registrations in November, the Luxembourg car market shows a contraction of 16.6% over one year. This is the sixth consecutive month of decline.

National registration agency SNCA last month recorded 3,177 new car registrations, a decline of 16.6% compared to November 2020. Only in 2003 was there a worse month of November.

Since the beginning of the year, the SNCA has recorded 41,140 new registrations. This is 694 fewer than last year and 10,741 fewer than in 2019 over the same period.

The Luxembourg car market has not been at such low levels since 2001. The side effects of the pandemic are making 2021 an even worse year than 2020.

The , soaring prices for raw materials, but also for energy, and turbulence in supply chains, leading to partial and temporary plant closures, have resulted in longer delivery times for vehicles, forcing customers to wait several months and sometimes almost a year. In other cases, manufacturers were unable to deliver the vehicle with the options chosen by the customer.

The trend is similar in Germany, where the decline in November was 31.7% compared to 2020. According to figures from the federal automobile agency KBA, 198,258 new cars were registered last month. In France, the decline was less marked, with a 3.2% drop in new registrations compared to November 2020, a period that already showed a 27% drop.

In Belgium, Febiac reported that in the last month of November, registrations of new passenger cars were down by 17% compared to November 2020. Over the first 11 months of the year, the market showed a contraction of 9.6% compared to the results recorded in 2020 and a contraction of 29.8% compared to 2019.

German brands still in the lead

With 4,790 new registrations since the beginning of the year, Volkswagen remains the favourite brand of motorists in Luxembourg. Behind it, the ranking is dominated by "premium" German brands. With 4,263 new registrations, BMW is in second place. Mercedes completes the podium with 4,137 new registrations since January.

Audi (3,368 new registrations), Peugeot (2,601 units) and Skoda (2,174 units) follow.

In the luxury category, Ferrari has 115 new registrations since January. Lamborghini has 58 and Maserati 45.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.