Ireland’s Light-Vehicle Sales Jump 29.8% in 2015

Ireland’s new-vehicle industry bounced back from several years of moribund performances in 2015 with car sales soaring 29.8% to 124,925 units.

Society of the Irish Motor Industry statistics show light-commercial-vehicle deliveries climbed 41.8% to 23,722 units from a year earlier.

SIMI Director General Alan Nolan says 2015 turned out to be a good year of continued recovery for the auto industry and is a strong indicator of the health of the general economy.

“We now look forward to 2016 with greater optimism and a real potential to see registrations return to normal levels that we have not seen since before 2008,” Nolan says in a statement.

“Sales within the different sectors have performed well in 2015 and we would expect to see this improvement continue in the new year.”

The year ended on a weaker note with the traditionally slow December car sales slipping 1.4% year-on-year to 342 units. LCV sales for the month jumped 50.3% to 236 units.

Volkswagen shrugged off its emissions-fixing woes to top the Irish market, up 31.7% to 15,379 units, comfortably ahead of Toyota, up 27.6% to 13,109, and Ford, rising 27.1% to 12,050.

The VW Golf was Ireland’s top-selling model in 2015, up 24.8% to 5,519 units, ahead of the Ford Focus, up 12% to 4,248, and the Nissan Qashqai, up 9.4% to 4,163.

Ford continued its dominance of the LCV market, with deliveries rising 50.1% to 6,467 units and almost doubling VW, whose rose 17.9% to 3,371. Renault, up 82.4% at 2,960 units, rounded out the top three.

Two Ford models topped the LCV list, with the Transit Van jumping 52.3% to 3,082 units and the Transit Connect up 65.7% at 1,672. The VW Caddy followed, down 18.4% to 1,628 units – the only model in the top 10 to show a year-on-year decline.