The new Ford Focus RS was part of an onslaught of new model introduction helping the maker's Europe sales in January.

Ford Motor Co. started off the year on the right foot in Europe by posting a double-digit sales increase during January.

Driven by strong demand for a broad range of vehicles Ford’s total vehicle sales and market share in Europe increased by nearly 10, selling 96,900 vehicles in its 20 traditional European markets. This was about 3 percentage points better than industry growth. Ford market share increased by 0.2 percentage points to 7.9%.

Across all of its 50 European markets, Ford sold a total of 105,200 vehicles – up nearly 9% vs an industry growth of just 3% – and driving Ford’s market share up 0.4 of a percentage point to 7.6%.

For Ford, which has seen its stock price nosedive despite record profits, the sales results from Europe are most welcome news. The modest growth in vehicle sales across Europe is also welcome new as it suggests the economies of Western Europe are finally showing signs of a broad recovery for the first time since the 2008-2009 recession.

(Ford hints at crossover, SUV future. For more, Click Here.)

However, Ford’s performance puts pressure on General Motors’ European operations, which lost money again in 2015.

“The European auto industry is off to a very strong start and Ford was able to outpace this growth thanks largely to demand for our SUVs, commercial vehicles and performance vehicles,” said Roelant de Waard, vice president, Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford of Europe.

(Click Here for details about LaNeve’s thoughts on SUV sales going forward.)

“Importantly, we gained share by selling to retail customers while many others in industry are using self-registration and rentals sales extensively.”

Ford’s sales in higher value sales channels were markedly up in January. Retail and fleet sales accounted for 81% of Ford’s car sales in January – 3 percentage points better than in the same month last year and 11 percentage points better than the industry average.

(To see more about Ford’s new Explorer packages in Chicago, Click Here.)

After increasing market share in each of the past two years and boosting vehicle sales 10% in 2015, Ford is planning to launch seven new and refreshed vehicles in Europe during 2016, including the new Kuga and Edge SUVs, Focus RS performance car, new powertrain and technologies for Transit Custom and Transit 2-ton, and a freshened Ranger pick-up, Ford officials said.