The new car registration figures for May show the immediate impact of the new scrappage scheme on retail sales, but, if anything, fleet registrations are getting worse.
Last month, retail figures were down 14.9% on May 2008, a huge improvement on the year to date figure of 26.3% down. Meanwhile, fleet registrations were 33.2% down on May 2008, and the year to date figure has now slid back to 29.5% down on the first five months of 2008.
There were 64,492 new cars registered to fleet in May, compared with 96,572 in May 2008, and the figures so far this year are 365,174 against 518,191 for January-May 2008.
Ford, Vauxhall and VW were the top three fleet brands, with Ford extending its lead over arch rival Vauxhall to more than 11,000 units so far this year.
German prestige badges BMW and Audi both finished the month ahead of volume brand Peugeot, while Nissan, and its Qashqai in particular, had a very strong month, and was actually up year-on-year, if only by a dozen units.
Further down the table, Chevrolet and Hyundai had very productive months, 55.5 and 41.9% up respectively, while Seat was up 12.0%.
But in the other direction were Renault, only ranking 17th last month with 865 registrations – 78.8% down on May 2008, and Saab which managed to beat Renault’s figure by finishing the month 89.5% down due to a combination of aging product line-up and massive uncertainty about the company’s future.
Ford locked out the top two spots in the model table with the Focus and Fiesta, while the Qashqai’s unusually promising month saw it make a rare foray into the top ten models chart.
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