New car market sees best-for-a-decade growth in September

THE UK’s new car market saw a 5.6% increase in registrations last month – its biggest rise in a decade.

In total, 425,861 new cars were registered last month, helping the industry to its 31st consecutive month of growth.

Registrations for the year-to-date reached 1,958,196 – up 9.1% on January-September 2013.

However, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has warned that after March’s (the other new-plate month) 18% surge, September’s more moderate growth may be indicative of demand starting to level off.

Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, said: “September’s strong performance underlined the continuing robustness of the UK new car market, particularly in the context of last September’s bumper volumes.

“Demand for the new 64-plate has been boosted by intensifying confidence in the UK economy, with consumers attracted by a wide range of exciting, increasingly fuel-efficient, new cars.

“In the months since March – which saw an 18% jump in registrations – the growth has shown signs of levelling off as the market starts to find its natural running rate.”

Of the vehicles registered last month, 204,105 were diesel-fuelled, with 211,801 petrol and 9,955 alternatively-fuelled.

The fleet car market again picked up, with 178,771 vehicles registered (September 2013: 170,535). In the year-to-date, 904,772 fleet vehicles have been registered (2013: 842,223).

However, it was not a particularly good month for the executive market, with Audi (-1.14%), BMW (-8.85%) and Jaguar (-0.3%) all seeing a drop in their sales. Mercedes Benz was the exception, with new registrations up 10%. Lexus was also up, 5.9% on the same month last year.

Land Rover enjoyed a good month – up 14.5% on last year, with almost 11,000 vehicles registered.

Ford retained its market leading status at 12.76% (2013: 12.67%), boosted by the best selling Fiesta and Focus. However, main rival Vauxhall slipped into single figures, recording a market share of 9.67% (2013: 10.25%).

BMW-owned Mini was still in negative territory – sales down 3.7% on this time last year, but the brand has struggled all year because of the introduction of a new model and the phasing out of the old one. The trend in its figures however, tends to suggest things are recovering as sales of the new model pick up. Year-to-date figures show an overall decline of more than 9%.

In the luxury sector, both Aston Martin and Bentley fared well; the Gaydon manufacturer seeing a 21% growth in new registrations and the VW-owned Bentley a 40% rise compared with the same month last year.

Peter Gallimore, partner and Automotive Lead at Deloitte in the Midlands, said that with the UK new car market having contributed nearly 30% of the absolute growth in new car sales achieved across Europe by the end of August, relief would be felt across the industry.

“September is the second most important month of the UK new car sales calendar and the latest results would suggest that 2014 will deliver total new car sales in line with industry predictions,” he said.

He added that if the new car sales were representative of the performance of the UK economy as a whole then there were further signs that confidence within the business sector was improving.

“Fleet and business car sales are now seeing the sort of growth that has been provided by private sales over the past two and half years. This contributed to diesel sales exceeding petrol sales at the end of August, though the private buyer continues to be attracted by the lower fuel consumption levels offered by diesel power,” he said.