Rallying the industry: open dealers bring growth in new car registrations in UK and Europe

This resonates with the fact that dealerships suffered more than two months of lost trading, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remaining closed.

Breaking the results into the three sectors, private buyers accounted for the greater share of registrations, with a 63.7% market share compared to fleet buyers, who held a 32.8% share and business buyers with 3.5%. However, they all suffered a loss with the fleet segment suffering a 93.4% drop from the same month the year before, the private segment down 83.8% and the business segment down 81.1%.

Breaking down the figures into three segments, private buyers held a 63.7% market share, the fleet segment had around half that with a 32.8% share and the business segment held only a 3.5% share.

Mike Hawes, chief executive of the SMMT, said: “After a second month of shutdown, the re-opening of dealerships was a pivotal moment for the entire industry and the thousands of people whose jobs depend on it. Customers keen to trade up into the latest, cutting-edge new cars are now able to return to showrooms and early reports suggest there is good business given the circumstances.

“Restarting this market is a crucial first step in driving the recovery of Britain’s critical car manufacturers and supply chain, and to supporting the wider economy. Ensuring people have the confidence to invest in the latest vehicles will also help address some of the environmental challenges the in the long term.”

Mainland Europe

However, this is an established theme across many European countries, with France and Italy experiencing new car registrations half that of the year before, while Spain saw a drop of 73%.

According to figures released by the French auto industry association CCFA, new car registrations were 50.3% lower in May this year compared to last year. Similarly, new car registrations in Italy were 49.6% lower than the previous year according to ANFIA.

New car registrations in German followed a similar trend, dropping by 49.5% in May compared to the same month the year before, totalling 168,148 passenger cars according to the KBA automotive authority. This was divided into a 61.9% market share for commercial sales, and a 38% share for private sales.

As the global focus shifts to economic recovery following the pandemic, Germany’s new car registration figures had improved slightly from the 61.1% decline in April 2020, compared to the year before.

Figures in Spain were higher – albeit not at the levels seen in the UK – at 34,337 new cars registered in May, some 72.7% lower than the year before according to ANFAC, the Spanish vehicle manufacturer’s association.

May 2020

The reason why Spain fared worse than its French and Italian counterparts, could be due to the phased return of its dealerships. Although Italian dealers opened first on May 4, the French and Spanish were close behind on May 11 – some 21 days before dealerships opened in the UK, although this late return could be due to the order in which countries were infected with the virus.

During the initial phase of Spain’s dealers returning to work, dealers could only reopen if they were smaller than 400sq metres and had implemented health and safety protocols. Then, as of May 11, all dealers could reopen regardless of size if they adhered to the health and safety protocols.

According to automotive insight provider Autovista, many areas such as Madrid and Barcelona remained on the first phase for a long period of time which could have resulted in the excessive damage visible in the country’s figures.

Furthermore, Autovista revealed that individuals were only permitted to visit a dealership if it was less than one kilometre from their home, restricting the flow of customers at a dealer and damaging the registration rates.

Green is good

There were severe declines across all segments and fuel types, with diesel dropping 93% compared to the same month the year before, and petrol dropping 90.5%.

However, supporting the theory that the pandemic may actually turn out to be good for electrification trends, battery electric vehicles saw 2,424 registrations, a 21.5% rise from the same month in 2019.

This positive trend seen in the alternative drivetrain market was mimicked in the German market, with the diesel market share sitting at 31.6%, petrol holding a 51.1% share, hybrid vehicles representing 13.6% of the market, plug-ins at 4% and electric cars at 3.3%.

Electric car registrations increased by 20.5% compared with the same period in 2019, sitting at 5,578. The same was seen in hybrid vehicle registrations, which increased by 18.3% to 22,844, and the plug-in vehicle registrations, which increased by 106.6% to 6,755.