German Automotive Sales in 2012 Buoyed by Corporate Fleets

FLENSBURG, GERMANY – While vehicle demand by individuals fell off last year, vehicles sales to corporate entities, such as the country’s largest telecom company, Deutsche Telekom — which owns 38,000 vehicles or more than one for every two employees — accounted for 32 percent of automotive sales, according to the Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority also known as Das Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA), in an original report by Bloomberg.com.

This spike in fleet sales is up from 27 percent in 2010.

Corporate fleet sales helped keep Germany, the continent’s largest automotive market, somewhat steady. Overall, retail automotive sales slipped just 2.9 percent in Germany, while they fell to the lowest levels in almost two decades elsewhere in Europe.

According to the KBA, businesses in Germany accounted for 64 percent of vehicle sales in November 2012. This is in contrast to the U.S. where less than 20 percent of vehicles are purchased by fleets.