Growth in UK car registrations is slowing, according to official figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
The total number of new cars registered in July was 178,523, which is only fractionally more than the total for June.
However, that's still a small increase over July 2015, and the year-to-date total is higher than that for 2015 by 2.8%, with almost 1.6million cars sold so far this year.
Fleet sales once again outstripped private sales by a small margin in July; they account for 51.1% of new registrations, compared with 45.1% private registrations and 3.8% business.
Diesel sales fell by 1.1% compared with July 2015, although demand for diesels for the year so far has risen by 1.9%, with more than 15,000 more diesels registered in 2016. Petrol car registrations were almost identical to July of last year, with only 14 more petrol-powered cars registered in July 2016; on the whole, though, they’ve increased by 2.7%.
Registrations of alternatively-fuelledd vehicles (AFVs) have risen considerably: in July more than 1000 additional AFVs were registered compared with the same month in 2015. Due to AFVs’ relatively small market share of 2.4% though, the total number of AVS registered in 2016 so far is still only 51,394.
The Ford Fiesta remains the best-selling car in the UK by quite a margin, with 7,990 registered in July, and 71,823 since the start of the year.
The UK's 10 most popular new cars of 2016 are as follows:
Ford Fiesta 71,823
Vauxhall Corsa 47,962
Ford Focus 43,626
Volkswagen Golf 42,096
Nissan Qashqai 38,183
Vauxhall Astra 33,345
Volkswagen Polo 32,112
Mini 26,533
Vauxhall Mokka 25,783
Mercedes-Benz C-Class 25,084
Citröen’s falling market share continued in July, with a 21.56% decrease compared with July 2015. Across the same period, Fiat, Ssangyong and Mitsubishi’s market shares fell by around a quarter, and Porsche’s fell by 45%. Porsche’s year-to-date market share is bolstered by previous months’ successes, and has fallen by just 0.28%, while Fiat’s fell by 1.44%.
Renault endured a disappointing July; its market share fell by 31% compared with July 2015, although across the year so far its sales have grown by 14% to just over 3% of the total market.
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@ Jimi Beckwith
Not least that I have pointed this out once this year already...clearly you don't listen to your readers!
Citroen is NOT down 21%....they are reporting DS and Citroen separately as of this year....therefore you need to add the two together if you wish to draw parallels with 2015.
This was clearly reported in all the trade mags.
I have no allegiance to Citroen, in fact I think they are French crap, but they do deserve to be reported correctly by Auto publishers.
July sales
Good news ?