Car dealers and manufacturers are smiling again as new vehicle sales surge ahead. Last year, new car sales finished up at 96,282 units, up 29% on the year before and an encouraging sign for things to come. Not only that, but commercial vehicle sales also bubbled, often taken as a more important barometer as to how the economy is doing.
Comparing the first quarter of this year with that of 2014, things are looking rosy, as with 64,538 registrations already in the bag, the numbers are a further 29% higher than the same period last year. Many are predicting a bumper year, well in excess of 100,000 cars - if not quite at the dizzying heights of 2008, when 151,444 new models were registered.
Top of the new car sales charts is the Volkswagen Golf, accounting for 5% of the whole market. The Ford Focus, launched in considerably enhanced format in the New Year, isn’t far behind in second place, while the Nissan Qashqai, Toyota Corolla, Skoda Octavia and Ford Fiesta round out the top six. Naturally, sales of all of these are up on the same period in 2014, but only the new Volkswagen Passat and Toyota Yaris are outperforming the overall sales increases in percentage terms.
Reflecting renewed investment in petrol engine technology, it seems that petrol power is slowly coming back into favour among new car buyers. It’s a subtle shift for now, but the share of new cars sold in the first quarter of 2015 was 28%, up from 25% for the whole of 2014. Hybrid and electric cars also increased their market share, but the gains are tiny still.