Winners and losers in rising new car market

Ford’s Fiesta again topped the new car registration charts in April, the latest registration tables throwing up several winners and losers.

The Fiesta remains the best-selling car so far this year ahead of Vauxhall’s Corsa and the Ford Focus, and Ford unsurprisingly has the highest share of the UK market, its 14.1 per cent up five per cent on 2011.

Notable among the losers is Alfa Romeo, the Italian brand’s year-to-date sales down almost 34 per cent and plummeting 51.5 per cent in April compared to a year ago. Alfa has 0.6 per cent of the market but its 0.4 figure in April was half that of a year ago.

This decline comes as sister brand Fiat enjoys a 9.5 per cent gain year-to-date, almost 25 per cent up in April and holding 2.2 per cent of the market in 2012.

New kid in the Fiat family Chrysler has also rocketed in sales, but this is no surprise, the brand effectively being relaunched this year with new models such as the Ypsilon, Delta and soon to launch 300C.

Chrysler sold one short of 1,000 cars in the first four months of 2012, 360 per cent up on the same period in 2011 but still worth only 0.03 per cent of the market.

Similarly MG, currently promoting itself heavily with surprisingly early success on the race track in the British Touring Car Championship (pictured), has seen a 1,493 per cent increase in the first four months of 2012. However that relates to 462 cars sold compared to 29, worth 0.07 per cent of the market.

Volume makers with worries include Renault – the recent savage pruning of the French brand’s model range and dealers appears yet to produce positive results.

Renault’s year-to-date figures are down almost 47 per cent, and April saw a 56 per cent slide. The brand’s market share in April was 1.5 per cent, less than half the 3.3 per cent of a year ago.

Vauxhall remains Britain’s second-biggest brand with 10.5 per cent of the market year-to-date, but that’s a 12.6 per cent slide in the first four months of 2012. Third-placed Volkswagen is holding steady at around nine per cent of the market.

Other volume makers with most cause to be happy include Skoda (up 22 per cent to 2.5 per cent of the market) and Kia (plus 22, 3 per cent).

Words by: Andrew Charman