December brought a strong finish to the year for Western Europe’s car market with sales in the month up 11.8% on 2012’s pace, according to data issued by LMC Automotive.

For the year as a whole, car sales in the region fell back by 1.9% to stand at just over 11.5m units.

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The market finished the year strongly as the annualised selling rate climbed to 12.3m units a year, only the second time in 2013 that the selling rate has been above 12m units a year.

However, while all major markets were up in year-on-year terms in December (many on a very depleted comparison base), the strong selling rate was boosted mainly by the results in the UK and the Netherlands.

The UK car market was by far the best performer in terms of volume growth in 2013. The UK finished the year with a flourish, up 23.8% in December with both private and fleet sales doing well. The UK market was the only major market to see significant growth last year, helped by low interest rates, windfalls from PPI mis-selling settlements and a general pick up in economic activity.

Spanish sales were also higher in 2013, though assistance came from scrappage incentives. At 720,000 units it is still very low by international standards.

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The French and Italian car markets both slipped back in 2013

While up 5.4% year-on-year in December, the German car market’s selling rate looked a little disappointing once again, ensuring that the market fell short of the 3m mark for 2013, overall sales down 4.2% on 2012.

The generally positive evolution of selling rates over 2013 bodes well for growth in 2014, LMC said. However, the forecast analysts remained cautious that any major improvement will take place in 2014, forecasting modest car market growth of 2-3%.