New and used car sales up

Cartell.ie (the vehicle history and data expert) has done some number crunching to compare the new and used car markets for the first few weeks of January. As expected, the numbers are encouraging from an economic point of view, with the new vehicle market up 22 per cent and three per cent more used vehicle transactions over the same period in 2015.

Total registrations of new vehicles stood at 33,448 up to January 24. This compares to a figure of 35,355 for the whole of January 2015 and 27,371 for the equivalent period last year. That's a significant 22 per cent increase given that 2015 recorded a gain of 30 per cent over 2014.

The number of used vehicles changing hands has also increased. So far this year, Cartell.ie reports that there have been 75,527 'transactions' of used vehicles - including imports. That compares to 70,607 for the same time period of 2015. While the increase is a relatively modest three per cent, it should be taken alongside the fact that last year there were a record number of used vehicle transactions, at 1,125,794.

John Byrne, Cartell.ie commented: "Clearly these figures are indicative of the levels of anticipated growth for 2016. This is more evident in the case of new vehicle sales in January. The used market is also displaying an uptick and this comes off the back of record volumes of transactions in 2015."

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