The development of this country is a brilliant sample of human cleverness, considering 25% of Netherlands territory is below sea level. Citizens are 16.7 millions, with an urbanization rate of 83%. The country is a founding member of the European Community and one of the most developed in the world. The light passenger vehicle industry in 2011 registered 617.336 units and was the world’s 20th. With only 94.000 vehicles produces in 2010, Netherlands was the 36th globally.
In March 2013, the Netherlands car market posted a deep 32.1% drop with first quarter sales collapsed by 30.3% hit by economic recession. Behind Volkswagen, Opel soared in second place thanks to outstanding Corsa sales.
Car market in The Netherlands was frozen in February, with sales declining 27.1% from last year posting the 12th decline in the last 14 months. Renault and Opel have significantly lost share, while Kia and Hyundai gained.
Confirming the negative momentum, the Dutch car market in January posted an heavy fall of 31.8%. Following reduced speed in December, BMW and Audi started the year with booming share. Kia was really strong as well.
In spite of a positive 5.4% December performance, the Dutch car market ended the year with a loss of 9.7% from last year. Thanks to the outstanding sales performance of Megane, Renault was market leader ahead of Volkswagen.
In November, the Nederlands car market was down 26.7% with year-to-date sales down 10.2%. Renault posted a phenomenal month, taking the market leadership with a share of 13.1%, thanks to an outstanding Megane performance. Ford lost 4 points of share.
October reported really low volumes for the car market in the Netherlands. After 10th year-on-year declines in a string, the market collapsed by 38.9% from last year. Ford gained the market leadership pushed by strong Focus sales.
In September, the Netherlands car market posted 32.090 sales, down 27.8% from last year. Year-to-date sales were 429.094, down 5.9%. Peugeot in 2nd and Toyota in 3rd are the emerging brands in the market.
In August, the Netherlands car market posted 33.211 sales, down 15.6% from last year. Year to date sales were 397.000, down 3.5%. Toyota jumped at 11.5% of share doubling the first half level while Opel dropped at 2.9%, the half of 1st half.
The 1999 was the record year for the Netherlands automotive market. In that year the cars sold were 611.487 and in the following years the market remained below that peak, with the worst performance achieved in the 2009, the year of the great global economic crisis, when only 387.000 vehicles were registered.