China exceeds 30 million pieces, India flies to third place in the world. Global photography of the automotive sector in 2025.
The car market in Europe is doing better but still remains far from pre-Covid levels. The latest data shows that in March they were registered in Western Europe (EU, EFTA and UK) 1,581,169 cars with an increase of 11.1% on the same month last year. The final balance for the first quarter rises to 3,521,110 cars registered with an increase of 4.1% over the same period in 2025. However, sales are 15.1% lower than in 2019. Even in Italy New car registrations grew in the first three months, recording an increase of 7.6% in March compared to March 2025, while in the first three months of 2026 overall volumes jumped by 9.2% compared to the first quarter of 2025.
The gap between national production and registrations
Good news, then. It’s a shame, however, that few of the new cars delivered to Italian motorists are produced in Italy. In fact, comparing the production and sales data relating to 2025, the latest available sources Oica (Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs Automobiles), it emerges that in our country for every 100 cars registered only 15 are built in national factories Stellantisthe rest comes from abroad: last year 237,849 cars were manufactured in Italy compared to 1,524,668 cars sold. An interesting fact also for the decisions of the government which, when it launches incentive plans, actually supports foreign productions.
In France, on the contrary, over one million cars were produced in 2025, generating sales of 1.6 million; in Germany 4.1 million cars built and 2.8 million purchased by Germans; finally, in Spain, 2025 production of 1.8 million cars and 1.1 million registrations. In Italy, a former protagonist of the sector, the disproportion between local production and sales is notable while in Germany and Spain production even exceeds national sales.
The new geography of the global market
Browsing among the numbers provided by theOica we obtain an interesting snapshot of the state of health of the car at a global level where, overall, 70.9 million cars were sold in 2025 with an increase of 5.2% on the previous year. The largest market is the China which alone has absorbed over 30 million cars (and produces the same number), a sales volume growing by 9.2% over 2024. Europe as a whole has 13 million registrations (up 2.4% compared to 2024) with Germany its largest market.
THE’India it is the third largest car market with a sales volume of 4.4 million cars, a number that is constantly growing: 6 years ago there were 2.4 million. Japan is stable at 3.8 million cars (+3%) while the car market USA it is down 8.3% to 2.7 million (but the figure is distorted by the fact that Americans use pick-ups as cars, considered commercial vehicles in the statistics). In South America, Brazil is in first place with a market of almost 2 million cars growing by 2.5%.
Almost every country in the world recorded an increase in car sales in 2025, with one notable exception: in Russia last year 1.3 million cars were registered, a sales volume that fell by 15.7% compared to 2024. Evidently the state of health of the Russian economy is not very good.
