Great year for Skoda Ireland

SKODA Ireland have announced that despite the Irish new car market decreasing by 10 per cent compared to 2016, SKODA has increased new car turnover by one per cent to €146 million in 2017 and increased turnover from parts and accessories by 8 per cent to €9.6million.

A growing number of customers are also availing of the competitive SKODA finance offers, with the brand loaning over €112 million to customers over the past twelve months, an increase of 5% on 2016.

SKODA Ireland also recorded Market Share of 6.9 per cent which is the highest ever share recorded by the brand in Ireland and saw them deliver 9,056 new vehicles to customers in 2017. The growth has solidified SKODA’s position as the sixth best-selling car brand in the country for the third year in a row, as the brand now sets its sights on a top five finish in 2018.

In addition to this record sales and finance performance, the brand had a busy twelve months with the introduction of five new models into their product range including the brand new KODIAQ and KAROQ SUV’s; a refresh to their compact Citigo and Rapid models; and a newly designed top-selling Octavia.

John Donegan, Brand Director at SKODA Ireland, said there’s no doubt that the new car market has been impacted by the level of imports in 2017.

‘Brexit and sterling values pose big threats to the industry but SKODA has remained strong based on our extensive range, strong dealer network and competitive offers. We are even more optimistic for 2018 based on our impressive order bank to date and also due to the increased supply of our new KAROQ SUV.’ TOYOTA Ireland’s chief executive Steve Tormey has outlined his power train mix predictions for 2018, and all told the future picture for diesel is very negative, while it’s very positive for Hybrid.

Based upon sales patterns in 2017 and pre-sales indicators for 2018, Mr. Tormey predicts that diesel will account for only 45 per cent of the overall market, down from 65 per cent in 2017, while preference for petrol hybrid power trains will double from 3.4 per cent in 2017 to 7 per cent in 2018.

Looking further ahead, Mr Tormey believes that by 2020 diesel is likely to be down close to 20 per cent of the overall market, with hybrid at roughly 25 per cent of the market.

This trend is similar across Europe. In Germany the diesel share accounts for 38.8 per cent of sales, down from 45.9 per cent a year ago, while diesel sales in the UK fell by a third towards the end of 2017.

Consistently in Ireland’s top two selling car brands over the past decade, Toyota’s sales serve as a trend barometer to predict where the Irish market is going proportionally.

mR Tormey said in our planning for 2018, we’d predicted our Hybrid mix of total passenger car sales to grow from 30 per cent to 45 per cent.

However the demand coming into 2018 is more like 55 per cent Hybrid.

‘Our Diesel demand coming into 2018 is down from a 38 per cent mix to 18 per cent, which we had predicted, as Irish consumers look to protect their future resale value and the environment from a health point view.’