THERE WAS SOME welcome good news in the car industry today with an upward trend in sales for January recorded.

This is according to new statistics from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).

Car registration last month was shown to be up 31% on the same period of 2014. It is also projected that car sales are set to exceed 100,000 by the end of the year – the first time they will have done so since 2008.

Figures from Irish car website Motorcheck.ie – which also released figures today – showed strong sales figures for the month of January, with 25.4% more cars sold than in the same period in 2014.

Rising sales 

According to the SIMI, January sales climbed to 29,948 from 22,893 the previous year.

According to the new numbers, there were 96,344 car sales last year, which was an increase of almost 30% on the year before.

The SIMI figures also take account of the potential knock-on effects that increases in sales have had.

Employment in the sector went up by 10.1% in the last year – with a job creation of 3,800.

The change that global oil prices have brought to the cost of fuel was also reflected in the study. Petrol prices were shown to be down 7.5%, with diesel down by 9.6%.

Insurance costs however were up 11.6%.

SIMI / Done Deal SIMI / Done Deal / Done Deal

Results 

The review carried out by the service also looked at the age of cars on Irish roads.

Over a third (35.5%) were found to be over 10 years old, the majority were found to be between 5 and 10 years old (40.5%) while less than a quarter (24%) were found to be five years or younger.

Speaking about the results, SIMI President said, “2014 was a positive year for the Motor Industry, and we are confident that this growth will continue into 2015, and this is borne out by the increase in vehicle sales in January 2015.”

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