Euro 2016 has been an own goal for UK car sales, particularly in Wales.
Robin Roberts reports…
New car sales dipped in June after four years of sustained growth, and by over 6% in Wales as the national team stormed through the series.
SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said the industry had seen a cooling off in showrooms for a few months and it was too soon to attribute the dip of 0.8% to the Referendum vote.
“It’s important Government takes every measure to restore business and economic confidence to avoid the market contracting in the coming months,” he added.
It was private sales which fell 4.5% and sent a judder through the car market while fleet sales, which are usually incentivised, rose by a similar percentage.
June saw 255,766 new cars registered, about 2,100 less than the same time last year, with hybrid and electric sales up nearly 17%, diesel and petrol powered cars dipped 2.1% and 0.5% respectively.
Best sellers last month were: Fiesta, Corsa, Focus, Golf, MINI, Qashqai, Astra, Polo, Mokka and MB C Class.
Ford maintained market dominance with 12.82%, closely followed by Vauxhall with 11.64%, but the Griffin-badged models’ sales volume was down 14.8% while the Blue-Oval cars saw just 8.5% decline in numbers registered.
MINI gained ground in the month and Renault sales jumped over 37%
In the premium sector it was a good month for Audi, BMW, Infiniti, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, and Mercedes-Benz and Volvo among others.
Despite the performance of the Golf in the top ten, registrations of Volkswagen models slid almost 19% as it continued to suffer from its diesel fraud.
In Wales last month there was a steep decline, possibly due to a slowdown in showroom traffic due to the Wales football games.
Sales slid 6.36% to 8,030 with the best sellers being Fiesta, Kuga, Corsa, Qashqai, Polo, Focus, Mini, Mokka, Golf and Juke.