A little more information has come to light on Saab’s sales in Europe for the first quarter of this year. Yesterday I wrote as follows:

GM Europe had it’s best ever Q1 in 2008, selling 572,137 units. That’s genuinely good news. The bit that made me smile was one of the bullet points that said Cadillac sales were up 13%, which sounds impressive, but doesn’t mention the miniscule base.

It gets even more fun in the press release, which reads as follows: Saab sold 19,653 cars in Europe. Cadillac grew sales by 13 percent compared to the first three months of last year, HUMMER grew sales by 59 percent.

Well, the Saab number is a fall but they don’t mention that, nor the percentage.

Today we know the amount involved in the fall as European sales figures have come in for the quarter.

Saab sold 19,653 vehicles in Europe from January to March this year, which is an 11.6% fall from the 22,239 sold there in the first quarter of 2007.

For March, Saab sold 8,908 vehicles, which is 12.9% down on the 10,224 sold in the same month last year. It’s noted that nearly half the vehicles sold in Q1 were sold in March.

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XWD deliveries start this month in Europe, so it’ll be interesting to see the impact that has on sales, especially in May and June.

I’m expecting a reasonable improvement, though as the first deliveries will likely be the comparatively expensive Turbo X’s, I’m not sure how big that impact can be.