New passenger car registrations in the EU rose by 5.7% in 2014 compared to the previous year, European Automotive Manufacturers Association (ACEA) statistics have revealed. This was the EU wide first annual increase recorded since 2007.

Last year there were 11,879,573 units sold, as the demand from EU’s largest economies rose substantially. The largest increase among these economies was witnessed in Spain (18.4%), followed by the UK (9.3%) and Italy (4.2%). Germany and France saw very slight growth of 2.9% and 0.3% respectively.

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Significant year-on-year growth for passenger car registrations was recorded in new EU member states (those which joined after 2004), where numbers jumped by 14.2% in total.

Looking at monthly figures, December was the sixteenth consecutive month that EU car passenger car registrations increased. There were 951,329 units sold in the month, 4.7% more than December 2013.

The VW group was the manufacturer which sold the most units in 2014 in the EU and EFTA, selling a total of 2,967,676. VW group owns Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda, Seat and other smaller brands.

PSA group, which owns Peugeot and Citroen, followed with sales of 1,310,566. Renault group was the third biggest seller, with a combined 1,078,516 Renault and Dacia registrations last year.

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The biggest winners of 2014 in growth terms were some Asian brands, although in gross units sold they are lower than many European manufacturers. Mitsubishi saw its sales grow by 30.5%, followed by Mazda (20.4%) and Nissan (13.4%).