Industry News

New car registrations are up over 40% from March last year according to the statistics provided by SIMI. With almost 13,000 new registrations in March, that's still down slightly from 2019, but a marked increase on the same period in both 2020 and 2021.

The big winners are Hyundai, Toyota, and Kia who, together, account for over 40% of new car registrations so far in 2022. In fact, these three manufacturers account for the top 8 of ten most registered new models, with the Skoda Octavia and the Ford Puma rounding out the top ten.

We're starting to see a glimmer of hope that the global supply shortage brought on by, amongst other things, the pandemic, is starting to abate. But we can't yet say the outlook is 100% positive with the war in Ukraine creating it's own new difficulties for global (especially European) supply. 

So despite the improvements in the new car sector, faith in the used car market is at an all-time high. Even the post-Brexit increases in importation costs aren't putting people off. Used car imports totalled almost 50,000 in the first three months of the year, up a small but significant percentage from this time last year.