19 January 2022

UK Sales : 2021








UK registrations for December 2021 were 18% down. For the year it was +1%. The '+/-' column below is comparing market share variance for 2021 with 2020. An ongoing issue is a total indifference that exists in the country for any car maker's product that manufactures locally. Once the industry closes for good, there will be plenty of useless documents produced as to why it happened. I'll save them the time and say it was due to self-centredness leading to gross apathy. 

The big news is there was only one Ford model in the top 10 list. I can't recall that happening before. I've got yearly data going back to the early 1960s and there were always more Ford models in the top 10 than that. The Tesla 3 was the best selling passenger car in December and 2nd YTD. 

VW has easily moved past long-time leader Ford to take the top place in the UK. It seems certain that will be maintained and then it will be a new number one brand for the country. It was 1977 that Ford supplanted BL at number one and has been there since, until 2021. As Ford has a global policy of pulling back on passenger car sales, it was only a matter of when not if. As VW fought to avoid compensating its UK customers for dieselgate, I see the irony in the situation. 

The top three placings are now German marques, Audi in particular has done well. The UK may have left Europe but Germany isn't leaving the UK. Vauxhall is holding its own, helped in no small measure by the Corsa, which is the best selling model in the UK for the full year. 

Less noticeable is Toyota, Kia and Hyundai moving up this list stealthily. The Korean duo doesn't seem to have a  problem acquiring semiconductor chips for their cars. MG is in the top 20 and Tesla is one above them at 17th.

Point of interest: Petrol cars dropped 16% to 900.000. Hybrid sales were 360,000 and +60%. Diesel were down 48% to 260,000. Finally electric cars increased 76% to 190,000. 

Data source: SMMT.

2 comments:

  1. Jaguar minus 20%?
    Still on the lose? Even at the home market?
    Can they be that overpriced?

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    1. The way I did the stats was focusing on a shift in market share. Jaguar sales were down about 4% but with a 16% lift in sales, gave it a 20% loss of share.
      The policy of the new CEO is to reduce volume and turn Jaguar into a niche brand. I can see why chasing volume for the sake of it isn't wise but I think the new direction may be more extreme than necessary.
      Much of the problem IMO is JLR isn't a company that shares costs with other brands so costs per unit are higher. Audi for example has the VW group to share with and Jaguar doesn't have that. A pity JLR doesn't have a co-operation arrangement for Jaguar to reduce expense.

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