Toyota is Ireland’s best-selling car brand in January 2021

Toyota has taken the lead as Ireland’s best-selling car brand with a 15% market share in January. What’s more, Toyota has three self-charging hybrid models in SIMI’s list of top five best-selling new cars in Ireland during the month and in January 2021, 93% of all Toyota sales were hybrid.

Hybrid has had a significant year-on-year market share increase with a 42% increase in popularity, and a 20% share of the entire new car market. In contrast, the demand for pure petrol and diesel powered cars has dropped, with diesel falling 13% compared to January 2020.

Commenting on the January market numbers, Steve Tormey, Chief Executive of Toyota Ireland, said, “The preference for self-charging hybrids continues to go from strength to strength. Considering overall market penetration for hybrid cars was at 5.5% just three years ago, the consumer mindset shift towards more sustainable motoring is really gathering pace now and the tide is starting to turn against higher emitting vehicles like diesel.”

While trading conditions continue to be challenging due to Covid-19 and the industry at large has seen a 17.8% drop on new car registrations compared to January 2020, Toyota’s Irish market share remains relatively in line with how it started last year. In these early days of 2021, Toyota is seeing some promising growth areas with the RAV4 hybrid achieving double-digit growth and demonstrating the highest year-on-year increase (32%) of the top ten sellers by some margin.

While dealerships are currently open on a service-only basis, Irish consumers have adapted well to purchasing online and Toyota has been welcoming customers to its new virtual showroom and providing access to online sales tools since the first lockdown in 2020.