Total new car registrations in October were up by 4.01% year-on-year to 157,314 units, pushing the year-to-date total to 1,952,238, up by 10.18%.
As such, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has increased its forecast for total annual sales from 2.22 million, predicted in July, to 2.25 million, or roughly 10% above the total for 2012.
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The SMMT also believes the new car market will see 1% growth in 2014 and 2015.
Private demand
The market has continued to grow year-on-year each month for the past 20 months on the back of private demand, as highlighted in May, July and September 2013, and March 2012 among others.
Private demand saw 71,235 new cars registered in October, up 4.47% year-on-year, and 940,659 registered year-to-date, up 15.68%. Meanwhile, fleet and business car registrations combined were up 3.63% to 86,079 units in October, and up by 5.51% for the year to date to 1,011,579.
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By GlobalDataThe top three best-selling marques in the UK continued to be Ford, Vauxhall and Volkswagen, in that order, in October, with 13.56%, 11.52% and 8.01% market share respectively. Audi appears to have established itself in fourth place with 6.81% market share for the month, 6.40% for the year, pulling away from BMW in fifth.
The Ford Fiesta was the best-selling model for the month with 8,574 registrations, and remains the best-selling model for the year so far with 104,621 registrations.
Kia, which has spoken of its retail ambitions throughout 2013, registered 63,410 new cars in the first 10 months of the year.
richard.brown@timetric.com
