New car sales stabilise but are still a 13-year best in April
NEW car sales stabilised in April after a record-breaking March but are still the best for April for 13 years.
The gain for April was a more modest 2% in comparison to the stellar performance in March, with 189,505 cars registered in the month – the most in April since 2003, when 194,312 new vehicles found homes.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said the market growth in April was led by the fleet and business sectors, where respective increases of 6.1% and 2.8% counterbalanced a 2.5% fall in private registrations.
Meanwhile, demand for both petrol and diesel models remains high. Registrations of petrol cars increased 3.4% in April, while diesel saw a slight 0.6% decline. Following the trend set in the first three months of the year, uptake of alternative fuel vehicles jumped by more than a quarter as buyers looked to reduce emissions and running costs.
April’s performance puts registrations for 2016 to date 4.4% up on the same period last year. It follows a bumper March in which more than 518,000 cars were registered – the second-biggest month on record.
Demand for new cars has been running at a high level, after 43 consecutive months of growth in the market led to an all-time high of 2.63 million car registrations in 2015.
Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, said: “After such a strong March, April’s steadier performance was to be anticipated, and is in line with our expectations for the year. Consumer confidence remains high as buyers continue to capitalise on attractive finance deals, although this could be affected by political and economic uncertainty in the coming months.”
Sales honours went to Jaguar, which showed a 109% increase of its performance in April last year – testament to the popularity of its executive entry-level saloon, the Jaguar XE.
No other leading manufacturer could hold a flame to the Midlands marque, although its principal rivals Audi (3%), BMW (0.8%) and Mercedes-Benz (20%) all showed gains.
A serious marketing effort by Volkswagen saw its Golf climb to second place in the list of top 10 bestsellers for the month but even with the Polo coming in at sixth spot, the German manufacturer continued to struggle to overcome the impact of its emissions scandal with sales down almost 10% on April last year.
Ford retained its leading market share, despite a near 7% falls in sales year-on-year. Nevertheless, long-time rival Vauxhall could only come in third, slightly behind VW.
Honda enjoyed a recovery, with sales up almost 36%, outpacing rivals Nissan (1.9%) and Toyota (0.15%).
In the luxury sector, Bentley claimed the honours with sales up more than 89%, although volumes are small (195 against 103 last April). Aston Martin struggled in comparison, declining more than 42% on last year (41 against 71 cars last April).
Chinese-owned MG Motor UK struggled to maintain its recent popularity as sales waned almost 12%. The company will be hoping that its new SUV, the MG GS, revealed at the London Motor Show can help to restore some of its lustre.
