New car sales latest
SCRAPPAGE is easing declining new car sales, with June recording the smallest fall since July 2008.
The SMMT’s latest new car sales figures show that registrations were down 15.7 percent in June. 176,264 new cars were sold, with Ford’s Fiesta topping the pile.
After year-on-year declines of nearly 25 percent in May, this shows the positive impact the well-received scrappage scheme is having – a fact confirmed by SMMT chief executive Paul Everitt.
‘We are now beginning to see the positive impact of the scrappage scheme translate into new vehicle registrations,’ he said.
What’s more, things are going to get better!
‘SMMT expects the pace of improvement to increase in the coming months, but we can already see the industry making steady progress on the long road to recovery.’
This is great news for new car dealers across the country. It was long hoped that scrappage would help the industry: the figures are starting to provide hard evidence that this is indeed true.
It even beat the SMMT’s own estimates. Back in April, it reckoned the market would be down to 153,000 registrations. The 176k total is 15 percent higher than this.
Looking more closely at the figures, the scrappage-inspired success of small cars has seen superminis take a record 37.2 percent of the market. What’s more, the sub-supermini ‘mini’ segment saw staggering growth of 145 percent!
This, however, is leading to a decline in diesel penetration. Diesel is still up, but the disproportionate expense of diesel engines for small cars means fewer buyers are looking to oil-burners.
Even so, CO2 emissions of new cars are stil falling in 2009. It currently stands at 152.3g/km – 2.6 percent below the 158g/km full-year result from last year.
It’s also nearly 20 percent better than new cars sold back in 1997!
Scrappage has also led to the first rise in private buyer registrations since November 2007. They were up just under 4 percent.
The SMMT reinforced its message that better things are to come, too. ‘The scrappage scheme will have a positive impact on volumes, although the impact is likely to be lagged.’
Where will the new car market be in a few month’s time, then?
June 2009 top 10 best sellers
1 Ford Fiesta
2 Ford Focus
3 Vauxhall Corsa
4 Vauxhall Astra
5 Peugeot 207
6 MINI
7 Volkswagen Golf
8 Ford Mondeo
9 Vauxhall Insignia
10 BMW 3 Series
By Richard Aucock
Car production down, but decline lessens
Tags: new car sales, SMMT