New car sales down 6.35% so far this year

New car sales rose for the fourth month in a row in October, albeit in a month with just 1,696 new cars registered. Registrations were up 2.3 per cent last month. However, new car sales are down 6.35 per cent on the year with 73,395 new registrations up to the end of October this year compared to 78,375 for the same period last year.

Volkswagen remains the biggest selling brand on the Irish market with 9,367 new cars registered so far, ahead of Toyota in second place with 7,621. With sales in the last two months barely exceeding 1,000 cars in recent years, it's likely that VW will finish the year on top. The battle seems to be between Toyota and Ford with 7,456. Behind these is Hyundai with 5,776, ahead of Nissan with 5,277.

At the premium end of the market Audi has a lead of 175 registrations over BMW, which should be enough to see them crowned the best-selling premium brand for 2013. The VW Group brand has recorded 3,684 registrations so far this year against BMW's 3,509.

Meanwhile strong sales by Dacia in the latter part of this year has given them a market share of 1.69 per cent for the year to date with 1,243 registrations. That makes them the 16th most popular brand in Ireland, ahead of the likes of Citroen, Honda, Suzuki and well ahead of the likes of Fiat, which has recorded just 44 new registrations this year.

At the luxury end of the market there has been 25 Porsches registered so far this year, comprising 21 Cayenne SUVs, 3 Panamera coupes and a Boxster. There was also one Maserati Gran Turismo registered in 2013.

Diesel remains the firm favourite, representing 73 per cent of all new car sales. One more electric cars registrations have fallen significantly, even from their tiny base last year, to just 45 by the end of October this year compared to 134 over the same period in 2012.