U.K. Ekes Out Third Straight Month of Sales Growth

U.K. new-vehicle deliveries rose 1.8% in March to 372,835 units in what is traditionally the industry’s biggest sales month of the year, averaging 18% of full-year volume.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders says first-quarter deliveries inched up 0.9% to 563,556 units on the back of a better-than-expected March. Last month’s result topped SMMT’s forecast by some 20,000 vehicles, or almost 6%.

Private sales showed one of the best monthly increases in the past two years, climbing 7.4% in March to 189,487 units.

SMMT CEO Paul Everitt says March was the third consecutive month of retail growth.

“Domestic demand for new cars is showing signs of recovery, with private buyers increasingly returning to take advantage of a wide range of excellent products,” he says in a statement.

Sales have risen in four of the past eight months, but SMMT says the underlying market trend is more about stability than growth. The 12-month running total has been at about 1.95 million units since June 2011.

The market share for diesel and alternatively fueled vehicles continued increasing, to 50.4% and 1.5%, respectively, in the first quarter, with deliveries growing 4.7% to 283,872 units and 5.6% to 8,198, respectively, over like-2011.

Market-leader Ford saw car sales rise 1.9% to 53,830 units in March, taking its industry-leading first quarter up 3.5% to 82,848.

The Ford Fiesta was the U.K.’s best-selling model, both in March, with 22,667 units, and for the first quarter, with 33,390. The Ford Focus took third place in March deliveries with 15,086 units and ranked second year-to-date with 24,442.

Sales of U.K.-built cars climbed 12.3% in March, as their market share rose to 14.6%, from 13.3% year-on-year.

Nissan broke several sales records in March as deliveries jumped 16% year-over-year to 23,185 units for a market share of 5.6%.

For its financial year, Nissan sold 111,893 units for a record share of 5.1%. That gave the auto maker its best financial-year result since 2003, despite supply problems stemming from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last spring.

The Qashqai saw its best March ever with 8,487 deliveries to make it the U.K.’s sixth-best-selling car for the month. The Honda Juke, sold elsewhere as the Fit, set a monthly sales record with 5,350 units. Kia also posted a March record with 11,178 deliveries, up 12%, giving it a record first quarter up 17% to 17,211 units.

The only better total figures for Kia came in 2010 during the government’s scrappage scheme, when the auto maker sold 12,277 units that March, including 5,062 under the program that rewarded buyers with rebates for trading up.

“With the market as a whole slightly up, we are perhaps seeing the end of the slump in new-car sales that prompted the government’s scrappage scheme in 2009 and 2010,” Kia Managing Director Michael Cole says in a statement.

With Kia sales soaring, Paul Philpott, now chief operating officer of Kia Motors Europe in Frankfurt, is returning to become president and CEO of Kia in the U.K. and Ireland.

Philpott, 45, was Kia U.K.’s managing director from 2007 until he moved to Frankfurt in 2009.

SMMT says the van and truck market fell 7.6% in March to 45,048 units, with truck sales jumping 25.6% to 5,881 units but the van segment dropping 11.1% to 39,167.

Everitt says while truck deliveries showed an 18th consecutive month of growth, the van segment is struggling to retain the sales momentum that developed in 2011.

“Fuel prices are at the forefront of everyone’s minds, so the efficiency of new vans and trucks will be a key factor in returning the market to stability over the course of 2012,” he says.

After three months, the commercial-vehicle segment was down 9.6% to 73,768 units, with van sales falling 14.7% to 61,688 and the smaller-truck segment climbing 31.1% to 12,080.

General Motors’ Vauxhall Commercial Vehicles retained top spot in the van segment with deliveries of 2,494 units in March.

Sales of Ford CVs fell to 10,377 units from 12,622 year-over-year.

Ford’s medium-commercial vehicles, headed by the industry-leading Ford Transit van, accounted for 23.9% of deliveries in that segment year-to-date. Ford’s share of LCV sales in the first quarter was 47.4%, more than double prior-year’s 21.9%.

The Finance & Leasing Assn., the motor finance trade body, says good deals meant a record 64.5% of new-car buyers used dealer financing to make their purchase in the year to February.

All three of the main types of dealer finance – hire purchase, leasing and personal contract purchase– were up. Leasing continued to show the highest growth, up 50%, but still makes up less than 10% of the new-car-financing market.

Personal contract purchases were the most popular finance product, accounting for about 60% of the business.