A 2013 Fiat Panda at a dealership in Rome
Alessia Pierdomenico | Bloomberg | Getty Images
New vehicles sales in Western Europe are stabilizing and "running along the bottom," according to the head of Ford European operations, Dow Jones reported Monday.
"Whether we will see signs of improvement is the debate," Stephen Odell said. "We will probably start to see signs of minor recovery in the first part of 2014."
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The German auto association VDA recently reported new vehicle registrations in the European Union were up 4.9 percent in July compared to the year-ago earlier period.
Odell said he expects the company's market share to increase as August sales indicate that Western European demand is tracking an annualized pace of between 13.4 million and 13.6 million vehicles, according to Dow Jones.