- UK new car registrations rose 14.8% in April to 163,357 units.
- Registrations in the first four months of 2013 grew 8.9% to 768,555 units.
- April secured the strongest growth in 14 months as buying cycles and market volatility combined to boost uptake.
- Growth followed a further rise in private registrations, up almost a third on April last year.
- The UK new car market continues to outperform EU27’s market performance.
- Positive Q1 growth led to SMMT revising up its full year market forecast to 2.106 million units, which would be a 3% increase on 2012.
“The UK new car market continues to perform surprisingly strongly, with volumes again increasing in April. While the headline increase was up almost 15% there were more sales days this year than last,” said SMMT Interim Chief Executive, Mike Baunton. “The UK continues to perform well ahead of the troubled Eurozone as consumer confidence, regular purchase cycles, attractive finance deals and wider market factors continue to make new car buying favourable for motorists.”
April | Total | Diesel | Petrol | AFV | Private | Fleet | Business | ||||||||||||
2013 | 163,357 | 82,092 | 79,407 | 1,858 | 81,753 | 75,067 | 6,537 | ||||||||||||
2012 | 142,322 | 74,566 | 65,917 | 1,839 | 61,816 | 74,480 | 6,026 | ||||||||||||
% change | 14.8% | 10.1% | 20.5% | 1.0% | 32.3% | 0.8% | 8.5% | ||||||||||||
Mkt share ’13 | 50.3% | 48.6% | 1.1% | 50.0% | 46.0% | 4.0% | |||||||||||||
Mkt share ’12 | 52.4% | 46.3% | 1.3% | 43.4% | 52.3% | 4.2% | |||||||||||||
Year-to-date | Total | Diesel | Petrol | AFV | Private | Fleet | Business | ||||||||||||
2013 | 768,555 | 374,495 | 383,763 | 10,297 | 376,369 | 357,780 | 34,406 | ||||||||||||
2012 | 705,878 | 358,438 | 337,403 | 10,037 | 326,700 | 348,378 | 30,800 | ||||||||||||
% change | 8.9% | 4.5% | 13.7% | 2.6% | 15.2% | 2.7% | 11.7% | ||||||||||||
Mkt share ’13 | 48.7% | 49.9% | 1.3% | 49.0% | 46.6% | 4.5% | |||||||||||||
Mkt share ’12 | 50.8% | 47.8% | 1.4% | 46.3% | 49.4% | 4.4% | |||||||||||||
Best sellers | April | Year-to-date | |||||||||||||||||
1 | Fiesta | 8,083 | 1 | Fiesta | 42,392 | ||||||||||||||
2 | Corsa | 6,084 | 2 | Focus | 31,025 | ||||||||||||||
3 | Focus | 5,944 | 3 | Corsa | 30,645 | ||||||||||||||
4 | Golf | 5,283 | 4 | Astra | 21,446 | ||||||||||||||
5 | Astra | 4,244 | 5 | Golf | 21,009 | ||||||||||||||
6 | Qashqai | 3,761 | 6 | Qashqai | 18,362 | ||||||||||||||
7 | Polo | 3,630 | 7 | Polo | 15,383 | ||||||||||||||
8 | 500 | 3,037 | 8 | 208 | 14,083 | ||||||||||||||
9 | 208 | 2,975 | 9 | Juke | 12,788 | ||||||||||||||
10 | A3 | 2,935 | 10 | 500 | 12,654 |
Robust new car market growth continues in April
- UK new car registrations rose 14.8% in April to 163,357 units, the best April performance since 2008.
- With high demand for some models in March and an early Easter break, a number of registrations may have been pushed in to April.
- Registrations over the first four months of 2013 increased 8.9% or more than 60,000 units, to 768,555 units.
- Registrations over the past 12 months rose more than 150,000 units to 2.107 million units. This is still some 12.3% off the 2007 full year total.
- The growth has been supported by the private sector, where volumes were up 32.3% in the month and grew 15.2% over the year-to-date. Fleet and business volumes also rose in both the month and the year-to-date.
- All fuel types have shown growth over the first four months of 2013, although petrol-fuelled cars have seen their market share climb – supported by an increased demand for small cars among private buyers.
- The Mini segment continues to post the best growth, while the Supermini segment remains the largest segment. All segments, except Upper Medium, posted growth during April and the year-to-date.
- The Ford Fiesta was the best selling model in April and so far this year.
- SMMT revised upwards its full year forecast in April to 2.106 million units (from 2.057mn in January), a 3% rise on 2012 volumes. This figure is still some 300,000 units off the pre-recession market. Further growth to 2.123 million units is expected in 2014.
Click through to download the full April 2013 new car registrations news release and data table.