NEWS

MARCH 2010 has been a successful month for many brands but what about those that didn’t do so well? Well, the top market share fall slots were dominated by beleaguered makers Corvette, Daihatsu and Hummer. Indeed, Hummer barely exists at all, and Car Dealer Magazine was first to report the woes of Daihatsu here in [...]

MAZDA says its average return on sales for car dealers is 50 percent higher than the national UK average. A growing retail mix of car buyers is helping car dealers make more money from each sale. The brand has just announced that its fiscal year sales have broken the 50k barrier for only the second [...]

SCRAPPAGE incentives drawing to a close could put the car market recovery at risk reports JATO Dynamics. The intelligence firm points to the German car market as evidence of this. Since the end of scrappage scheme, German sales are down 29.8 percent – and the market has AGAIN been outsold by Italy… … which still [...]

2009 sales may have been down by a quarter but Mitsubishi sales and marketing director Toby Marshall is upbeat. ‘Scrappage wasn’t the number one priority.’ The focus of 2009 was different. Dealer profitability was the new goal, achieved via two major initiatives. First Mitsubishi took away the traditional dealer costs, so that training, brochures, IT [...]

JCT600 sold a record total of 632 retail cars over the last 7 day period as customer confidence booms. The Yorkshire car dealer says the past week has been the most successful in its 60-year history. Cars sold were worth a total of more than £10 million – and 2 dealerships each contributed 100 sales [...]

LAND Rover sales shot up 58 percent in January thanks to the bad weather driving off-roader sales. The new Discovery 4 range actually performed even better by clocking up a 92 percent sales rise at car dealers! ‘Heavy snow and icy conditions last month meant car buyers were looking for a vehicle that provides them [...]

FORD once again topped the November new car sales chart with the Fiesta easily beating the next-best. Which, as luck would have it, was also a Ford – the Focus! The November performance marks the 9th month in 2009 that the Fiesta has topped the charts. Total Fiesta sales stand at 109,420. Again, the Focus [...]

SMMT figures show November car registrations were up 57.6 percent on 2008 levels – in line with 2007 sales. This has led SMMT chief Paul Everitt to predict the market will exceed 1.975 million units. Could the 2009 UK new car market thus defy all odds and hit the magic 2 million mark? So far, [...]

BMW board member Ian Robertson predicts 2010 will be a year of ‘gentle growth’ for the firm. ‘It will not be rapid,’ he said, but recent upturns in markets will continue. He was speaking at the firm’s annual press dinner, where he detailed how BMW had coped during the past year’s recession. The company, he [...]

MAZDA is selling more cars to fleets, as businesses respond to list price increases from many manufacturers. The firm says its ability to manage price rises through 2009 has seen it win a big boost in fleet forward orders. These are up 19 percent, compared to an 11 percent decline across all car makers. ‘The [...]

NEW car sales for October were  up a huge 31.6% on 2008 levels – the biggest month of growth in 2009. Figures just released by the SMMT show that 168,942 new cars were sold in October. This takes the year-to-date total to 1,685,981 sales – meaning the year-on-year fall continues to decline. It now stands [...]

CAR dealers are letting the majority of sales leads slip through their fingers, because of bad practice. Not following up sales enquiries is seeing 90 percent of prospects walk out the door, say new studies. Mondial Assistance research has led the firm to conclude a ‘lack of proactive communication with potential customers could be losing [...]

CAR sales have been so strong recently, the SMMT has added 100,000 motors to its 2009 sales forecast. The revision is entirely down to the success of the scrappage scheme. SMMT chief Paul Everitt said ‘the Scrappage Incentive Scheme has had a demonstrably positive impact on new car registrations in 2009’. It sees the 2009 [...]

MAZDA has given UK car dealers an insight into its European performance, by revealing broad sales figures. It seems the UK wasn’t the only region setting sales records last month: Portugal, Turkey and Tunisia were also at it. The Mazda2 and Mazda3 led this charge – which saw no less than 16 EU countries report [...]

VOLKSWAGEN, Ford, Fiat and Renault are the makers behind a big European recovery in new car sales. The market rose 7.5 percent in September 2009, with massive sellers such as the Volkswagen Golf, Ford Fiesta, Fiat Grande Punto and Renault Megane leading the charge. They alone saw sales rise by 50 percent over September 2008! [...]

LAND Rover reports a second consecutive month of sales increases, after a successful September performance. 7185 new Land Rovers were sold, a 27 percent increase on September 2008. This total also ensures the UK remains the world’s largest market for Land Rovers. But it’s the individual performances that really stand out. Discovery sales were up [...]

NISSAN has used scrappage to push its market share above 4 percent, for the first time in 6 years. The UK-producing Japanese firm says key to this success are models built by the Sunderland factory – a staggering 82 percent of Nissans sold here last month were also built here. 16,908 sales helped snare it [...]

FLEET operators have said their ‘worst fears’ have been realised with the latest SMMT car sales figures. These show a massive fall in fleet and business sales. This has led fleet industry representative ACFO to condemn scrappage as a failure, for the businesses buying at least 60 percent of all new cars – and almost [...]

KIA has NEVER sold as many cars in a single month, as it did after recording 9772 sales in September 2009… And that’s true for any Kia car market across the whole of Europe! This earned Kia a 3.7 percent market share for the UK in September, adding to its year-to-date total share of 2.6 [...]

FORD won big in September – it not only sold more cars than anyone else, its sales boost was twice the UK average! Sales for the blue oval were up a massive 22 percent on September 2008. That equates to 54,500 new Fords being sold during the month – which saw the firm take nearly [...]