Pre-VAT hike boost for car sales
FLEET buyers looking to get the best deals ahead of next month’s VAT rise helped to bolster new car registrations in November, latest figures show.
However, despite the 6.1% increase in fleet sales last month, the total number of new car registrations declined 11.5% when compared with the same month last year.
Altogether 139,875 new cars were registered last month, which compares with 158,082 in November 2009 when the Government scrappage scheme was still in operation.
Of the latest figures, private buyers accounted for 64,353 cars – down 26.3% on last year – and fleet car registrations totalled 69,443, giving it a 49.6% share of the new car market.
Despite the overall decline, Paul Everitt, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said he was pleased with the figures.
“New car registrations fell by le4ss than expected in November with demand from the fleet sector helping to offset the market rebalancing following the end of the scrappage scheme,” he said.
“Registrations are expected to fall next month, but demand may benefit from motorists looking to avoid the January VAT rise. This factor, coupled with the strength of the first half of 2010, means year-end volumes are expected to lift to over 2.03m units, 2% up from last year.”
Despite optimistic manufacturing reports, he said 2011 was likely to continue being challenging with consumers reining in their spending in the face of Government austerity measures.
The latest figures show just over 1.9m new cars have been registered in the 11 months of the year to date.
Both Jaguar and Land Rover saw dips last month. Jaguar sales were down 5.5% at 1,386, while Land Rover, which has a manufacturing plant at Halewood, Merseyside, declined 3.7% with 2,382 vehicles registered. The combined sales gave JLR a 2.7% share of the UK market.
Remaining in the luxury sector, Crewe-based Bentley continued to enjoy success with the famous marque seeing a 22.7% increase in sales compared with the same month last year.
BMW continued to demonstrate its dominance of the executive sector with a 16.5% increase in sales compared with the same month last year, giving it a 7% share of the market. Mini sales rose 0.65% at 3,117 on last year.
In the mass market, Vauxhall continued with its strong performance, with sales up almost 3% on last year. The figure is in marked contrast to Toyota and Ford, which saw respective year-on-year declines of 37% and 11%.
However, Ford claimed some compensation grabbing the top two slots in the November best sellers list with the Fiesta and Focus respectively. The Astra, which is made at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant, was the fourth best seller with the Insignia fifth and the Corsa seventh.
