Wexford car sales up as county bucks the trend
WEXFORD clocked the biggest percentage rise in new car sales of any county in Ireland in the first four months of 2018.
Official statistics released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) show that a total of 2,072 new cars were registered in Wexford between January and April of this year compared to 1,943 for the same period last year, representing an increase of 6.64 per cent.
The figures show that Wexford had a 2.59 share of the national market in the first four months of this year compared to 2.32 per cent for the same period last year. Only two other counties registered a rise in new car sales in a largely flat market. Carlow recorded an increase of 1.18 per cent while Louth had an increase of 0.84 per cent.
The figures show that there was a total of 1,035 new registrations in Wexford in January of this year. There were 417 new registrations in February in the county, 440 in March and 180 in April.
New registrations in the county were up for three of the four months, with only January showing a decrease – 2.17 per cent compared to January 2017. February 2018 saw an increase of 34.52 while there was an increase of 1.38 in March. There was an increase of 27.66 per cent in April - registrations of 180 vehicles compared to 141 registrations in April 2017.
The top makes of new passenger cars sold in the county so far this year were: Hyundai, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Renault, Nissan, Skoda, Open, Peugeot and Kia. Nine of these ten brands showed an increase in registrations compared to last year with only Renault showing a small decrease of 5.62 per cent, dropping from 178 registrations in 2017 to 168 registrations for the same period this year.
The top ten car models sold in the county so far this year are: Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Qashqai, Ford Focus, Ford Kuga, Kia Sportage, Volkswagen Golf, Toyota Yaris, Volkswagen Polo, Skoda Octavia and Renault Megane.
Hatchbacks, MPVs and jeeps are the most popular car type in County Wexford in the first four months of 2018 with registrations of saloon and estate cars dropping by 32.61 per cent and 33.12 per cent respectively.
While diesel cars remain the most popular choice for Wexford motorists, they have experienced a drop in popularity decreasing 7.72 per cent from 1,347 to 1,243.
Petrol and petrol electric however enjoyed a surge in registrations of 33.33 per cent and 90.91 per cent respectively. So far this year 105 petrol electric cars have been registered in the county compared to 55 last year.
Electric cars are also on the increase with registrations of 16 so far this year compared to 12 last year, an increase of 33.33 per cent.
Petrol/Plug-In electric hybrid also increased from four registrations in the first quarter of the year compared to just one last year.
Wexford motorists prefer manual cars although sales of both manual and automatic cars increased this year. Last year 1,633 new manual cars were registered in the county compared to 1,683 this year, an increase of 3.06 per cent.
Automatic car sales rose by 25.48 per cent going from 310 last year to 389 this year.
Grey is the most popular choice of colour for local motorists followed by while/ivory, red/maroon, black and blue. Brown, orange, white/ivory and black, red/maroon and black and green bring up the rear of the colour choices for Wexford motorists. Black, brown and green cars all experienced a drop in registrations while the other colours increased. Nationally the figures show that new car registrations for the month of April were up 3.33 per cent (8,102) when compared to April 2017 (7,841), while new cars registrations in the year to date remain down 4.68 per cent (79,897) on the same period last year (83,823).
Sales of new Light Commercial Vehicle registrations (LCV) were up 6.51 per cent (1,800) on April 2017 (1,690) and year to date are up 5.39 per cent (14,323). New Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HCV) are also up 4.74 per cent for the month of April (243) compared to the same month last year (232) and are down 8.31 per cent (1,158) year to date. Sales of imported used cars were up 19.31 per cent for April 2018 (8,649) when compared to April 2017 (7,249) and year to date are 11.74 per cent (34,763) ahead of 2017 (31,111).