Motor industry hopeful of July pick-up

As people held off on buying a new car to wait for the new 132 number plate, car sales plunged by 73% in June compared with the same period last year.

Motorcheck.ie statistics show that the introduction of the new number plate has devastated sales in June.

The director general of the Society of Irish Motor Industry (Simi), Alan Nolan, said that the indication was that they would make some of the sales back in July.

“The change had to be made. We needed to change the buying patterns and move them from the start of the year to a more even spread.

“We’ll know for sure in July if it has worked. All the indicators are that July will make back the losses of June,” he said.

Sales of cars in Ireland so far this year are lagging 20% behind the same period for last year.

So far, there have been 53,000 cars registered this year down from 66,300 for the same period last year.

Mr Nolan admitted the economy was continuing to put people off purchasing a new car, but he remained confident that the introduction of a new number plate would boost sales in the second half of the year.

He said that the new plates will help cars retain their trade-in value by reflecting their true age.

The most popular marque sold in Ireland is Volkswagen with 13% of sales, followed closely by Toyota with 11%, and Ford at 10%.

The Volkswagen Golf remains Ireland’s most popular model this year with 2,673 (5.1% of the total market) units sold. The Nissan Qashqai is in second place with 2,397 (4.5%) units registered whilst the Ford Focus takes third position with 1,938 (3.7%) registrations.

There has also been a jump in the number of second-hand cars being imported into Ireland, with a 22% increase in vehicles coming into the country.

The most popular car to be imported second-hand is the Ford Focus with 2,039 registrations, followed by the Audi A4 (1,461) and the Volkswagen Passat (1,361).