Renault Down Through Third Quarter; Predicts Lower Volume for 2012

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has posted heavy losses through the third quarter of 2012. Unit sales were down 5.8% for the quarter. The company's biggest problems were in Europe where unit sales fell 18.4% and market share shrank 1.2% to 6.8% overall. The company now sells over half of its cars outside of Europe (55%). 

The drop in unit sales led to an obvious drop in revenue, down 13.3% to €8.447 billion for the third quarter. If you look at just the automotive portion of Renault, the company was down 14.4% to €7.928 billion.

Renault's revenue is down 4.7% for the first nine months of the year. Total revenue for the first nine months of the year was €29.382 billion, compared to €30.846 billion in the same period last year. 

Renault predicts the European market to decline by as much as 8%. At the beginning of the year, it predicted a 3%-4% drop in the market. 

Renault has been hit hard by the European market downturn. The company had focused on Europe for most of its life and only recently started expanding into emerging markets, and actually, it is quite strong in these markets. Sales in every market outside of Western Europe were up, and it is especially strong in South America. Renault market share in Brazil has gone from 0.9% to 6.7% in just the past year, although this is partially due to government incentives on cars in Brazil.