The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has increased its predictions for this year’s new car registrations in reaction to strong growth across the private, fleet and business sectors last month.
New car registrations grew by 12.7 per cent in July compared to the same month in 2012. A total of 162,228 units were registered during the month and it was the 17th successive monthly rise for the UK market.
The SMMT has upgraded its previous cautious forecast and now predicts that sales for the whole of 2013 will hit 2.216 million vehicles, 8.4 per cent ahead of last year.
“Recently we’ve seen a range of economic indicators point to improving conditions, and our raised sales forecast emphasises how positively we view the rest of 2013,” said Mike Baunton, SMMT interim chief executive.
The new car registrations continue to be equally shared between petrol and diesel fuels. For the year to July, petrol held a 49.4 per cent market share and diesel 49.3 per cent. Alternatively fuelled vehicles accounted for the remaining 1.3 per cent of the market.
However, the number of pure electric and plug-in hybrids registered in the UK is continuing to increase. Registrations have increased by 70.7 per cent compared with the first seven months of 2012, with 1885 vehicles registered.
The Ford Fiesta continued its reign as the UK’s most popular car, with 9089 registered during July.
UK’s new cars registrations for July 2013
1 Ford Fiesta 9089 units
2 Ford Focus 7229
3 Vauxhall Astra 6165
4 Volkswagen Golf 5166
5 Vauxhall Corsa 4986
6 Nissan Qashqai 4312
7 BMW 3-series 3070
8 Volkswagen Polo 3001
9 Nissan Juke 2943
10 Fiat 500 2768
Join the debate
Add your comment
how many problems u heard
how many problems u heard about the indian built dusters? VAG,ford, hyundai, honda all makes cars in india and export it all accross the world. by your words they all should be problamatic and by this time they might have closed all the facilities down. what a joke.if duster is cheap then its because nissan decided to make it cheap or they made it for a price. where ever the factory is the firm decides what component to be chosen and how it should be made.
apple makes every thing in china,are they all non durable? at the same time various firms makes low end to high end goods in china or india. ford's 'one car' motto simply is the same car all around the world irrrespective of where its made. buy an indian made or chinese made jetta/passat/polo and you wont find any difference with a european made one. the same goes with merc/bmw/audi etc etc.
p.s heard the same in many comments about nissan micra, that car is an utter failure even in india bcoz its made cheap
loads of Dusters
"... but in Yorkshire we seem to have loads of Dusters already..."
Given the reports of the quality control problems of the India-built Dusters in UK, be interesting to see how long they last there.
perhaps its no surprise, but
perhaps its no surprise, but in Yorkshire we seem to have loads of Dusters already. Very few Qashqai though, and not a huge number of 500s
As for the ever increasing number of car sales, i guess it should show the growing strength of our economy, but its probably more to do with cheap finance deals.
It must be pretty close to saturation point. Its a new car for 1 in 30 of the population. If the average car gets to 15 years old, then thats 1 car for every 2 people and that includes those under 17, those too old to drive, and those who cant drive, so it must be very nearly 1 car for everyone who can.