New car sales in Hungary plunged 72.1pc to 3,590 in October from the same month a year earlier, and dropped 60.3pc to 52,892 in the first ten months, auto industry research company Jato Dynamics said on Friday.

In October, only Latvia surpassed Hungary's October drop among the other 26 European countries in which Jato compiled data.

In January-October, three of the surveyed countries registered steeper decreases than Hungary, with drops of 77.9pc in Iceland, 73.7pc in Latvia and 68.1pc in Lithuania.

In the 26 European countries for which Jato compiled data, new car sales fell 4.1pc yr/yr in the first ten months but were already up 12.8pc in October as sales rose on seven big markets.

".. a closer look at the figures shows this is not necessarily a natural level of demand and we are still below the pre-recession sales level," David Di Girolamo of Jato noted.