Automotive Dealer - Spanish new car sales march 2012 ; New car sales in Spain fell 4.5 percent in March compared with a year earlier, industry data showed Monday, as consumers balked at making big purchases as the economy heads back into recession.
A total of 84,427 new cars were sold last month compared to 88,397 in March 2010, automakers' association Anfac said in a statement.
Total sales during the first quarter reached 204,119, a 1.9 percent drop over the same period in 2010 and the lowest level since 1993, it added.
The fall comes on the back of a 17.7 percent slump in new car sales during all of 2011 to 808,059 units.
Spain has seen private consumption, especially for big ticket items like cars, fall sharply since a property bubble collapsed in 2008 sending the jobless rate soaring to over 23 percent, the highest level in Europe.
The Spanish economy, the eurozone's fourth-largest, posted a second straight quarterly slump in the first quarter, the Bank of Spain said last week, meaning the country had slid back into recession barely two years after it emerged from the last one.
Spain's economy grew 0.7 percent in 2011 but is expected to contract by 1.7 percent this year.
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