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Last year set a new record for car registrations with 2.69 million units sold in the UK.
Retail sales were strong in the first half of the year driven by strong PCP business. PCH is also growing at a pace as buyers opt for car usage rather than ownership in bigger numbers.
Overall, according to SMMT figures, market share for retail fell to 44.8% (45.9% in 2015). In a sated private sector, carmakers turned increasingly to fleet sales, which saw a resurgence and fleet market share rose to 51.3% (50%).
When it came to fuel type buyers, perhaps swayed by negative headlines surroundings emissions, moved away from diesel which saw its market share fall to 47.7% (48.5%) while petrol saw market share grow to 49% (48.8%).
From a low base registrations of AFVs rose and market share ended the year on 3.3% (2.8%).
“Plug-in hybrids and petrol electric hybrids, in particular, experienced significant growth, with demand up 41.9% and 25.1% respectively. Meanwhile, more than 10,000 motorists chose to go fully electric in 2016 – up 3.3% on 2015,” said the SMMT.
The best-selling car in 2016 was the Ford Fiesta, which is impressive given that it is eight years old and due for replacement while the Vauxhall Astra was in second slot followed by the Volkswagen Golf, ford Focus and Mini.
Looking at the top 10 volume brands, the biggest growth came from three premium brands Mercedes-Benz (+16.9%), BMW (+9%) and Audi (+6.4%). Hyundai saw registrations rise +4.9%. The intense competition in the volume arena can be seen with the remaining seven players – Nissan, Toyota, Ford, Peugeot, Vauxhall and Volkswagen – in negative territory. Nissan, saw sales down -0.9% despite the best efforts of its best-selling Qashqai. Toyota saw sales down -2%, market leader Ford saw a decline of -5.1% but its Ford Fiesta and Focus are best-sellers. Peugeot was adrift -5.5%, Vauxhall -6.9% and Volkswagen, hit by the emissions scandal, down -7.5%.
Volume players aside Infiniti saw the biggest push of all brands for the year with new product on board, showing growth of 141.2%, followed by DS (+84%), Jaguar (+45.4%), Abarth (44.6%),Smart (+42.2%) and Bentley (+41.3%). At the other end of the scale Mitsubishi had a difficult year with registrations down -19.6%.
As usual, the market was – in part – driven by self-registrations. In September cap carried out a survey of dealers which found that a fifth (26%) expected volumes of pre-registered vehicles to exceed 21% of total new sales in September.
For more see Mike Hawes on 2016, Industry Reaction, Editor’s Blog and Van Sales
