Porsche 2012 Annual Report Download - page 45

Business development
Mixed picture in automotive market in
difficult macroeconomic environment
The global economy grew less strongly in the
reporting year 2012 than in the prior year. Accord-
ing to information from the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), the increase in economic performance
was 3.2 percent, down 0.7 percent on the figure
for 2011. The global economy was weakened in
particular by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe,
which caused the recession there to continue, as
well as by the uncertainty regarding the future
fiscal policy of the USA. Despite the difficult envi-
ronment for foreign trade, Germany bore up well
and increased its exports compared with the prior
year. On the whole, however, German economic
growth fell, from three percent in 2011 to 0.9 in the
reporting period. China’s exports decreased due to
lower demand and overall economic growth also
fell in the world’s second largest trading nation
from 9.3 percent in the prior year to 7.8 percent in
2012. The USA benefited from factors including
robust domestic consumer spending and the larg-
est economy in the world escaped the downturn in
2012, with an increase in economic growth of half
a percentage point to 2.3 percent.
Overall, the global automobile market present-
ed a mixed picture in 2012. The number of new
passenger vehicle registrations worldwide rose by
4 percent from 65.4 million in 2011 to just over 68
million vehicles. The markets in the USA, China,
Brazil, India and Russia again reported stable
growth. With 4.6 million vehicles, Japan recorded
an increase of around 30 percent, the highest
number of new registrations for 6 years, as the
German Association of the Automobile Industry
(VDA) announced. In China, growth came to
around 8 percent, with 13.2 million new registra-
tions. The US market grew by more than 13 per-
cent and saw sales of 14.4 million new passenger
vehicles and light trucks. In Russia, sales grew by
almost 11 percent to 2.9 million vehicles, Brazil
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