10:14 am, January 5, 2024

Volkswagen was the winner in the new car market share stakes last year, keeping its crown from 2022 and even increasing its hold, the SMMT revealed this morning.

The German brand grabbed 8.52% of the market by shifting 162,087 units – an increase on 2022’s figure of an 8.17% market share with 131,850 cars sold.

Ford came second with a 7.57% market share, selling 144,072 new cars – a drop from its 7.86% market share in 2022 with 126,826 units.

Meanwhile, Audi was third with 7.22% of the market (137,485 new cars), giving it a boost from its 6.82% share in 2022 when it sold 110,144 new cars.

A total of 1,903,054 new cars took to the UK’s road during 2023 – an increase of 17.9% on 2022’s figure of 1,614,063.

Growth was driven entirely by fleet investment after the previous year’s supply constraints faded and helped fulfil pent-up demand, said the SMMT.

Fleet deliveries rebounded by 38.7% year on year at 1,041,350, taking 54.7% of the market share, while business registrations, a small proportion of the market, fell by 1.5% to 44,031 and accounting for 2.3% of the market.

Meanwhile, private consumer sales dipped slightly by 0.1% to 817,673 units and a 43.0% market share.

It followed their strong recovery in 2022, with cost-of-living pressures and high interest rates constraining growth.

Battery-electric vehicle (BEV) uptake reached a record volume – up by almost 50,000 units with 314,687 new registrations – although their market share dropped by 0.1 of a percentage point to 16.5%.

Alex Buttle, co-founder of used car marketplace Motorway, commented: ‘Overall, 2023 was a super-strong year for the car industry with new car sales growing month on month, despite the challenging economic conditions.

‘While this can be partly explained by the post-pandemic backlog of demand the industry was finally able to fulfil, fleet sales have also been a major contributor to this sustained growth – especially for EVs, with many businesses taking advantage of generous tax incentives.

‘We are likely to see even more businesses choose electric next year thanks to these incentives. And if the government could offer similar incentives to private buyers, we will see EV sales surge further in 2024 too.’

The SMMT’s latest market outlook for 2024, which was published in November, reckons this year’s new car market will reach 1.97m units, with 439,000 BEVs taking a 22.3% market share.

The next quarterly revised outlook will be published in February.