THE SOCIETY OF THE Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) has issued the official 181 new vehicle registration figures for January along with its final SIMI/DoneDeal Quarterly Motor Industry Review of 2017.
Car sales figures for the month of January show that 181 registrations are down 4.8% (37,125) compared to January 2017 (39,003). Light Commercials are currently up 6.3% (6,728) compared to January last year (6,329), while HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) registrations are down 11.84% (402) in comparison to January 2017 (456).
The report highlights a number of price decreases in the cost of motoring. The average price of a new car in 2017 was 2% lower than a year earlier, while the cost of motor insurance in December 2017 was 10.9% lower than it was a year earlier. However, the cost of fuel increased with petrol prices up 4.2% and diesel prices up 3.6% last year.
Used car imports increased by 29.5% in 2017 aided by the weakness in sterling and this also impacted on new car sales volumes by dampening the residual value of Irish used cars.
As for the first month of 2018, Toyota has claimed the top spot with 4,393 new car registrations. Hyundai was second with 3,933 registrations and Volkswagen was third with 3,590 new car registrations.
Diesel registrations fall to a 57% market share in January 2018 with petrol at 36% and hybrids climbing by a massive 73% to a total market share of 6.26%.
Nissan experienced a sizeable shift away from diesel with some 60% of its January registrations being petrol-powered models.
Of the new Toyota models registered, 48% were hybrid.
The Yaris sold 1026 units, of which 49% were hybrid. The C-HR sold 813 units, of which 77% were hybrid. The Auris sold 807 units, of which 71% were hybrid. The RAV4 sold 582 units of which 49% were hybrid.
Peugeot recorded the strongest performance in the Irish new car market this January. The French car maker saw a huge 71% increase in passenger car registrations for the first month of 2018. The success comes on the back of demand for the Peugeot 2008 SUV, the Peugeot 3008 SUV and newly launched 5008 seven-seat SUV. The strong growth assured Peugeot a top ten place in the sales league and a 4.3% overall market share, cars and vans combined.
Unfortunately for Opel, the brand slipped out of the top ten chart for the first time since the 1980s. New registrations for Opels fell by 37%.
So far this year, the top three models are the Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Qashqai and Ford Focus.
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