New car sales continue to slide

07/07/11

By Matt Gibson

Sales of new cars dropped for the 12th consecutive month in June, according to the latest figures.

Statistics from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show that number of new car sales have been on a steady decline since the Government's car scrappage scheme ended last year.

There were 1,029,638 registrations in the first half of the year, showing a 7.1 per cent slide since the January-June 2010 period, in which the number of cars shifted was boosted by the incentive scheme. The SMMT estimates that this figure will rise to around 1.93 million by the end of the year, which will be short of the 2.03 million new registrations at the end of 2010.

The 183,125 new registrations in June was 6.2 per cent down on the amount of registrations recorded during the same month a year earlier.

SMMT chief executive Paul Everitt said: "June new car registrations continued to perform in line with industry expectations, with robust demand in the fleet sector and a relatively weak retail market."