New car registrations continue to rise - up 6.6% in July 2014

New car registrations continued to grow in July 2014 – for the 29th consecutive month – with registrations up by 6.6 per cent on 2013 to 172,907.

The Ford Fiesta (pictured) topped the UK sales chart again in July 2014

There must come a point (mustn’t there?) when new car sales/registrations slow down in the UK, but there seems little sign of it happening any time soon.

For the 29th month in a row, new car registrations in the UK rose again in July 2014, up by 6.6 per cent on the same month in 2013, hitting a total of 172,907.

So far in 2014, new car registrations have risen by 10.1 per cent to 1,460,172, with the SMMT predicting that new car registrations for 2014 will end up 8.1 per cent up on 2013 at 2,450,000.

As has been the case for some time, the Ford Fiesta is the UK’s best selling car in July, followed by the Ford Focus and Vauxhall Corsa, and although alternative fuel vehicles are seeing growth of 50 per cent over 2013 they still account for just 1.8 per cent of all new car registrations in the UK, with diesel powered cars taking a 50.3 per cent market share and petrol 47.9 per cent.

Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, said:

July saw the new car market extend its record period of growth to a 29th month, as confident consumers took advantage of an array of new products and attractive finance deals on the latest fuel-efficient new cars.
The continued positivity has led to an uplift in the SMMT full year forecast to 2.45 million passenger car registrations, a rise of 8.1%. However, the more moderate growth of the last three months shows that overall demand is beginning to stabilise.

A proper success story, with just one caveat.