Business Climate in Germany’s Automotive Industry Cools
The business climate in Germany’s automotive industry has cooled slightly. In October, the indicator fell to -16.1 points, down from -14.6 points* in September. “Companies in Germany’s automotive industry rate their current business situation as significantly worse than in the previous month,” says Anita Wölfl, a specialist at the ifo Center for Industrial Organization and New Technologies.
The situation indicator for the German automotive industry dropped to 9.2 points in October, down from 20.3 points* in September. Expectations for the coming months, however, improved a little – although they are still very low: the indicator rose from -44.0 points* to -38.4 points. This is accompanied by a somewhat more confident assessment of the order situation. It is true that the amount of work on automakers’ order books shrank slightly from 7.5 to 6.2 months. “However, the automotive order backlog is still quite high compared to the long-term average,” Wölfl says. In addition, significantly fewer companies see a lack of orders as an obstacle to production than was the case in the last survey in July.
*Seasonally adjusted
Data
We would be happy to provide you with detailed data on this topic upon request.
