Positive growth in the European automotive industry during 2016 has been hailed as “a remarkable feat” by JATO Dynamics analysts.

November registrations in the 29 European markets showed a 6.8% increase for the year-to-date, constituting the highest YTD increase since 2007, as the Renault Captur established itself as Europe’s best-selling SUV in the growing segment.

The UK’s 184,101 sales in November put it up 2.9% on the same month last year (178,876) to record a 2,514,764 total for the year-to-date, up 2.5% on the first 11 months of 2015.

Total registrations in the 29 European markets analysed by JATO Dynamics totalled 1,184,140 – an overall growth of 5%.

Year-to-date registrations for 2016 so far totalled 13,937,339, meanwhile, an increase of 6.8% on the previous year.

JATO Dynamics revealed that all five of Europe’s largest markets posted an increase in registrations during November, with the Spanish market seeing the highest increase in sales of 13% compared to the same period in 2015.

France ranked second, achieving a healthy growth of 8.2%. Meanwhile, Germany, Italy and the UK all posted modest increases of 1.5%, 5% and 2.9% respectively.

Felipe Munoz, Global Automotive Analyst at JATO Dynamics, said: “It’s looking highly likely that 2016 will top 2015’s strong registration figures, which is a remarkable feat given the political and economic uncertainty that has dominated 2016.

“However, it’s important that this growth isn’t taken for granted, as 2017 will bring further uncertainty – with the UK expected to trigger Article 50 in March, beginning the process of exiting the EU.

“Any decline in consumer confidence in the UK is likely to impact the European automotive market greatly – especially given that the German car market counts the UK as its biggest export market,”

The only markets experiencing a decline in registrations during November were Ireland, Switzerland and the Netherlands where registrations declined by 20.4%, 0.4% and 20.7% respectively.

Volkswagen Group maintained its position as Europe’s largest car group in November 2016.

Despite a 0.28 percentage points drop in market share it still accounted for 24.56% of the market in November.

Renault-Nissan increased its market share by 0.72 percentage points, keeping its second- place position and constituting 14.1% of the market.

Daimler posted the highest market share increase of 0.83 percentage points, making it the 5th largest car maker in Europe and meaning it accounted for 6.74% of the market in November.

Conversely, the biggest decline in market share was experienced by PSA, which remained Europe’s third largest car group despite a decrease in market share of 1.19 percentage points due to declines posted by all of its brands.

In the segment ranking, SUVs continued to perform well in November, 316,278 SUVs were registered, which was a 16.1% increase on the same month last year.

The SUV segment continued to increase its hold on the market – posting the highest market share gain of any segment and meaning it accounted for 26.7% of the market in November.

JATO said: “The Volkswagen Golf maintained its long held position of being Europe’s leading car, despite registrations for the model declining by 7.5% when compared to November 2015.

“The Renault Clio was the second best-selling model across Europe’s 29 markets, its November registrations increased by 20.3% when compared to the same month last year.

“The Renault Captur was Europe’s best-selling SUV in November, it registered 188 more models than its rival – the Volkswagen Tiguan, and pushed the Nissan Qashqai in to third place.”