European car market grows for 2nd straight month

Emirati visitors examine the Ferrari F12 berlinetta at the Dubai International Motor Show in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday Nov. 5, 2013. Photo / AP

The European car market may have seen the bottom.

The European carmaker's association on Tuesday released figures showing a second consecutive month of sales growth for the first time since September 2011.

Passenger car sales last month in the European Union rose 4.7 percent to just over 1 million units, with Italy the only major market to register a decrease, the 26th straight monthly contraction.

While the boost in car sales in September was due to the effect of two additional calendar days, October's sales increase was based on the same number of business days.

"This seems to indicate that, effectively, car markets throughout Europe have reached such a low point that a certain level of natural replacement is now at play," said Carlos Da Silva, an analyst at IHS Automotive.

He called the news "welcome" indicating "the end of the tunnel is near."

Still, there remains reason for caution: Despite the month-on-month increase, October sales were still the second-lowest for the month in the decade since the association started compiling statistics.

For the first 10 months of the year, sales were down 3 percent.

In Italy, the car market shrank 5.6 percent last month to 110,841 units, and was down 8 percent for the 10 months through October to 1.1 million cars. That's in contrast with Great Britain and Spain, which are now showing positive growth on the year after posting October unit sales increases of 4 percent and 34 percent, respectively.

-AP