Slight increase in new car sales in March

In total, 17,600 cars were sold last month though sales of goods vehicles were down.

NEW FIGURES FROM the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that there were 10,596 new private cars sold in March 2013, a slight increase of 0.1 per cent on the same month last year.

The number of new goods vehicles licensed last month was 1,057, down 8.5 per cent from March 2012. The number of tractors sold fell from 187 in March last year to 156 last month.

In total, 17,600 cars were sold last month, an increase of 2.5 per cent on last year.

The total number of new vehicles licensed in March was 12,452 and the total number of used private cars was 4,113 which is an increase of 12.9 per cent.

In March 2013, 29.1 per cent of the new cars sold were petrol and just over 70 per cent were diesel. The most popular make was Volswagen followed by Nissan, Toyota and Ford.

These figures refer to vehicles taxed for road use only.

Related: Car sales down 14 per cent in first quarter>
Read: 12 per cent fall in new car sales in February>

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