New car sales fall by nearly 12 per cent
NEW car sales were almost 12 per cent down in County Wexford in 2017, according to the latest figures provided Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).
A total of 3,069 cars were sold in the Model County last year, compared to 3,486 during 2016, 2.34 per cent and 2.38 per cent respectively of the national share.
Nationally, sales were down 10 per cent on the year, with 131,356 cars sold compared to 146,649 in 2016.
Although new Commercial Vehicle registrations showed an increase for both Light and Heavy Commercial Vehicles during the final month of the year, with very low volumes in December, this did not impact on the overall trend for the full year.
New Light Commercial Vehicle registrations (LCV) at 24,195, recorded a fall of 14.2 per cent for the year in 2017, while New Heavy Commercial
Ireland’s top selling car in 2017 was the Hyundai Tucson (right) while the nation’s favourite colour was grey.
Vehicle registrations (HGV) 2,602 saw a decrease of 9.4 per cent over the 12 months compared to 2016 (2,873). SIMI Director General, Alan Nolan said 2017 was a very challenging year for the Motor Industry, mainly due to the impact of Brexit on Euro/ Sterling exchange rates.
‘Without Brexit we would have anticipated a reasonable level of growth in the market but in the aftermath of the UK Brexit vote we had modified our projection to 132,000 and that prediction turned out to be very accurate with the car market finishing at 131,356. This number is still better than most recent years and produced reasonable volumes across all vehicle sales sectors,’ he said. ‘We are, of course, now at the commencement of the new
181 sales period which is hugely important for our members who remain optimistic for the coming year. ‘For new car buyers competition in the choice of models, the various incentives and special offers as well as the range of finance options mean that competition is driving value for consumers,’ said Mr Nolan. ‘While used imports have been increasing strongly, new car imports have fallen by 25 per cent in the last year and by almost 60% over the last three years. With such a range of models, offers and finance options available to consumers to choose from, the best advice, as always, is to research in advance to shop around and, if you can, shop local and support businesses in your home place.’
The five top selling car brands for the year to date are: 1. Volkswagen 2. Toyota 3. Ford 4. Hyundai 5. Nissan and the car models year for the year to date are: 1. Hyundai Tucson 2. Volkswagen Golf 3. Nissan Qashqai 4. Skoda Octavia 5. Ford Focus
The top selling car for 2017 was the Hyundai Tucson and
the Top Car Colour was Grey