ENGLAND bucked the trend when today’s new car sales figures were released – by seeing a rise in the level of registrations.
Across Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the figures headed in the opposite direction as the overall UK market saw its first drop in more than 40 months.
Taking the UK as a whole, there were 177,189 cars registered during October, a decrease of 1.17 per cent compared with the 179,281 recorded for the same month last year. Overall registrations so far this year have risen 6.38 per cent, however, with 2,267,377 in 2015 compared with 2,131,444 t0 October 2014.
In England 153,584 vehicles were registered in October, a 0.70 per cent rise compared to the 152,522 cars a year ago. Meanwhile, there were 1,940,380 registrations to date in 2015, up 7.39 per cent from the 1,806,850 in 2014.
Northern Ireland saw 3,677 cars registered last month, compared with the 3,843 last October – a decrease of 4.32 per cent. However, there is better news for the Ulster market in the annual figures, with 51,963 cars registered so far, a 0.24 per cent increase over the 51,839 last year.
Moving on to Scotland, new car registrations sank to 13,459 in October, a significant 17.16 per cent drop compared to the 16,247 in October 2014. However, overall, Scotland saw a 0.22 per cent increase in year-to-date registrations in 2015, with 193,729 up on the 193,305 recorded by this time last year.
Wales also endured a quieter month year on year, with 6,469 registrations marking a fall of three per cent from the 6,669 last October. However, following the trend, Wales also experienced an overall rise of 2.33 per cent so far in 2015, with 81,305 registrations beating the 79,450 recorded last year.
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