Skoda Ireland report record sales in 2018

SKODA Ireland have recently announced a record Market share of 7.3% for 2018, which marks the highest ever sales performance by the brand in Ireland and saw them deliver 9,126 new vehicles to customers.

The result sees SKODA sales grow by over 1% on 2017 figures, an impressive feat given that the new car market in Ireland has dropped by almost 5% this year. This growth has solidified the SKODA brand as the sixth highest selling car brand in the country for fourth year running, while setting their sights on a top five finish in 2019.

New car turnover has increased by 4% from €148m to €152m and the turnover from sales of vehicle parts and accessories has increased an impressive 20% from €8.8m to €10.6m.

A growing number of customers are also availing of the competitive SKODA finance offers and today the company announced that they have loaned over €111million to customers over the past twelve months, an increase of 6% on 2017.

In addition to this record sales and finance performance, other highlights for the brand in a busy twelve months included the car partnership with the World Meeting of Families and the visit Pope Francis in August, the introduction of the new facelifted Fabia model and the KAROQ winning medium SUV of the year at the Irish Car of the Year Awards. Globally, this comes on the back of SKODA AUTO announcing 1,148,600 vehicles sales for the first eleven months of the year which was also marked an increase of 5.1% over the same period last year.

John Donegan, Brand Director at SKODA Ireland commented: ‘There’s no doubt that the new car market has been impacted by the level of imports in 2018. 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 2019 based on our impressive order bank to date and also due to the increased supply of our 7-seat KODIAQ SUV in particular.

‘Not only this, we will launch our new SCALA medium sized hatchback in June, the facelift and hybrid Superb in quarter three and our all new Compact Crossover in quarter four – with these additions, SKODA is in a great place to attract new customers and maintain our already strong brand loyalty in 2019. ‘