Business leads demand for new cars

New car sales fall overall, but fleet and business sales forge ahead

THE Ford Fiesta was the best-selling car in April in a month that saw strong fleet and business demand for new cars, even though overall sales declined by 7.4% to 137,746 units.

Fleet sales to leasing companies and large company car buyers were up by 6.5% while business sales to SMEs were up by 12.2%, suggesting small businesses are continuing to replace older company cars with new cars as business confidence grows – see our story Small firms see rise in business confidence.

More business car buyers appear to be getting the low-emission message as diesel sales accounted for 52.7% of the new car market – the VW Golf was the best selling diesel in April. Alternatively fuelled cars, such as hybrids, also rose by 48.1% as the choice of hybrid cars increases.

“New car registrations in April demonstrated continued stability in the marketplace, with demand remaining lower than in 2010, although slightly ahead of industry expectations,” commented Paul Everitt, SMMT chief executive.

“The coming months will remain challenging, but we do expect to see a return to growth in the second half of the year.”

Jeff Peyton-Bruhl, national fleet manager at Hyundai, added: “Our fleet sales our growing at an astonishing rate as we provide a better service to businesses – we’ve gone from me and one person in the sales field to six and me in four years, while our fleet and business headcount overall has risen to 13.