Mitsubishi sales win
August 6th, 2009 by Richard Aucock
MITSUBISHI is delighted with its July sales performance – which has come WITHOUT scrappage aid!
The firm grew its market share from 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent in July.
This 53 percent boost means it comes in 9th in the overall market share improvement league table.
‘But, if you take out scrappage sales,’ a spokesman told us, ‘we’ve done even better than this suggests.
‘Indeed, our scrappage sales were actually DOWN by 5 percent last month – and that’s something we’re very happy about indeed.’
This is because of profit margins for car dealers, he said. ‘On a small car scrappage deal, both we and the car dealer would be making less than £100.
‘When you factor in the very onerous Government paperwork necessary to claw back your £1000 scrappage stake, the risk-to-reward ratio means the balance doesn’t stack up.’
He explains that if a car dealer mistypes, say, just a single digit in a chassis number incorrectly, the Government will reject the claim – ‘and there’s no recourse. Bang goes your £1000 – it’s a one-shot process.’
Mitsubishi is thus instead concentrating on selling more profitable cars. ‘That’s why July has been so great – our retail share has been high, we’ve done no distress fleet selling, our scrappage sales have declined, and overall profit margins have risen.
‘On top of this, we’ve won market share!’
Cars doing particularly well include the Colt and the L200. Indeed, the Colt is responsible for 40 percent of Mitsubishi UK sales – with, impressively, the green Colt Cleartec taking a fifth of those.
‘It means Cleartec models take 5 percent of Mitsubishi’s total overall UK volume.’
Great news for the future development of the brand, adds our man…
By Richard Aucock
Tags: mitsubishi, new car scrap, sales, scrappage, SMMT