Growth continues in April new car market

SMMT figures show that UK new car registrations rose 14.8 per cent in April to 163,357 units. Registrations in the first four months of 2013 grew 8.9 per cent to 768,555 units. April secured the strongest growth in 14 months as buying cycles and market volatility combined to boost uptake.

Growth followed a further rise in private registrations, up almost a third on April last year and the UK new car market continues to outperform EU27’s market performance. Positive Q1 growth led to SMMT revising up its full year market forecast to 2.106 million units, which would be a 3 per cent increase on 2012. 

“The UK new car market continues to perform surprisingly strongly, with volumes again increasing in April. While the headline increase was up almost 15 per cent there were more sales days this year than last,” said SMMT Interim Chief Executive, Mike Baunton. “The UK continues to perform well ahead of the troubled Eurozone as consumer confidence, regular purchase cycles, attractive finance deals and wider market factors continue to make new car buying favourable for motorists.”