New car sales in the vital September new registration month have proven better than analysts expected with a negligible fall of less than 1% compared to 2010 figures.
Sales are down 5% so far this year but the decline was just 0.8% in September, meaning the UK car industry was given a welcome boost in business in the year’s second most important month of car sales.
332,476 new cars were registered, helping quarter three new car sales dip just 0.7% overall. It means the UK car market has staged a minor recovery over the past few months, although experts remain cautious despite business outperforming expectations.
Indeed, the SMMT has actually revised down its 2012 new car registration forecast, to 1.96 million cars (compared to expectations of 1.92 million car sales this year).
It is, said SMMT chief executive Paul Everitt, ‘a reflection of the continued weakness in UK domestic demand and the uncertainty across European economies.
‘It is important government acts to sustain an investment-led recovery and implements measures to encourage more private sector investment in R&D, skills, new plants and machinery.’
In September, the Ford Fiesta once again led the sales charts, with 15,647 registrations. The Ford Focus came in second, on 14,754 registrations, but the Vauxhall Corsa was a close third with 14,339 models registered. The top three were a long way ahead of the fourth-place Volkswagen Golf, which just pipped the British-built Vauxhall Astra.
Superminis still account for 37.8% of the new car market and are the biggest single sector of all in the UK. The supermini share did, however, fall last month – with the lower medium, executive, luxury and dual purpose sectors all growing in size.
September new car sales top 10
1 Ford Fiesta
2 Ford Focus
3 Vauxhall Corsa
4 Volkswagen Golf
5 Vauxhall Astra
6 Volkswagen Polo
7 Vauxhall Insignia
8 MINI
9 BMW 3 Series
10 Nissan Qashqai
