March Sales Reflect Ailing Irish Economy

Irish new-car sales slumped 9% in March to 13,100 units from prior-year’s 14,396 as hopes for recovery in the financially stressed country remained elusive.

Nissan deliveries jumped 26.4% to 1,988 units last month to outsell Volkswagen, down 9.7% to 1,163; Ford, down 32.6% to 1,222; and Toyota, down 31.7% to 1,051.

The latest result dropped first-quarter new-car sales 4.3% to 45,898 units. Light-commercial-vehicle deliveries tumbled 8.7% in March to 1,415, pushing the year-to-date total down 1.9% to 5,032.

Despite the March decline, Toyota led the new-car market after three months, even though sales fell 15.4% to 5,895 units. VW followed, with deliveries inching up 0.34% to 5,862. Ford took third place, down 4.8% to 5,033, while Nissan showed a 0.54% uptick to 4,112.

The Ford Focus and Nissan Qashqai were deadlocked as Ireland’s best-selling vehicles through the first quarter, each with 2,275 units.

Diesel-powered cars increased their market share with first-quarter deliveries of 33,636 units, giving the segment a 73.3% share compared with 70.8% year-ago.

Auto makers found 24 buyers of electric vehicles in the first quarter, compared with none in like-2011, while hybrid sales rose 46.7% to 355 units.

The Society of the Irish Motor Industry says the first quarter is crucial for auto makers, as nearly 50% of annual new-car sales typically occur in the first three months of the year.

“Given the very weak level of retail activity in dealerships at present, though, the industry is not expecting this year to finish anywhere close to last year’s overall total of 89,927 (units),” SIMI says in a statement.

“Franchise dealers (are) reporting very poor consumer footfall and low levels of forward orders in the pipeline,” SIMI Director General Alan Nolan says. “On the basis of the current level of activity, we would still predict a market in the region of 76,000 new-car sales for 2012.” That would be a drop of 15.5% from 2011.

“While we have seen the numbers hold up reasonably well in the absence of (the government’s) scrappage (incentive program), this really has to be seen in context,” he says.

“The industry had pre-ordered its cars for 2012 as early as last summer, and in March we have seen brands pushing to get these cars registered through fleet deals and hire-drives on the basis that if registrations are not achieved in the first quarter, then they just may not get their cars registered.”