WEXFORD CAR SALES UP 5% ON LAST YEAR
NEW car sales in Wexford are up almost five per cent on last year’s figures.
Official statistics released last week by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) show that a total of 1,892 new car registrations took place in Wexford for the first three months of the year.
This represents a 4.99 per cent increase on the same period last year in which 1,802 new cars were registered. The 2018 figures of 1,892 represents a 2.63 per cent share of the national new car registrations between January and March of this year.
Nationally the figures show that the total new car registrations for the month of March were down 10.5 per cent (17,796) when compared to March 2017 (19,890), while new cars registrations year to date remain 5.5 per cent (71,842) down on the same period last year (75,982).
Nationally new Light Commercial Vehicle registrations (LCV) were up 2 per cent (3,147) on March 2017 (3,084) and year to date are up 5.4 per cent (12,537). While New Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HGV) have declined 11.2 per cent for the month of March (271) compared to the same month last year (305) and are down 11.2 per cent (916) year to date.
Imported Used Cars have shown a slight decrease of 4.6 per cent for March 2018 (8,154) when compared to March
2017 (8,545) however year to date they are 9.5 per cent (26,116) ahead of 2017 (23,862)
In March alone this year 440 new cars, 78 light commercial vehicles and 10 heavy commercial vehicles were registered in Wexford. The top five selling brands in Wexford for March were Hyundai, Ford, Volkswagen, Renault and Nissan.
SIMI Director General, Alan Nolan said: ‘March has been a challenging trading month for our industry with snow days and two public holidays leading to shorter trading weeks, but we also had the Hire-drive deliveries at similar levels to last year to bolster registrations.
‘Brexit however remains the dom- inant issue with Used Car Imports up 9.5 per cent for the First Quarter while New Car Registrations are down by 5.5 per cent over the same period. For the month of March New Car Registrations (-10.5 per cent) and Used Car Imports (-4.6 per cent) are both down, although it should be noted that the number of business days were reduced this year due to the Storm Emma and the Easter Holiday period, which was in April last year.
‘Overall registrations for the First Quarter remain in line with projections based on the continuing impact of Brexit and the increasing volume of imported used cars. The light commercial vehicle sector by contrast has seen a continued increase reflecting the strong economic growth for businesses at present.
‘Continuing the trend highlighted in January the diesel market share has reduced from 67 per cent last year to 56 per cent in 2018. This will have implications for our CO2 Targets, as the Average CO2 emissions from a new car (113.2 Gms/ Km) this year has increased by 1.5 Gms/ Km. This would produce a calculated increase of around 2,000 tonnes in annual CO2 for the new cars registered this year. The volume of imported used cars had average CO2 emissions of 121.1 Gms/Km.’