New car sales down 18 per cent in February

Although the sale of new goods vehicles was up compared to last year, sales of private cars is down by a significant margin.

THE NUMBER of new cars sold last month was down by a significant number on the same period last year, new figures have shown.

Figures published by the Central Statistics Office show that 10,993 new vehicles were registered in February, down from 13,470 in the same month of 2011 – a drop of 18.4 per cent.

The number of new goods vehicles registered stood at 1,455, up by 106 (7.9 per cent) on last year’s number of 1,349.

Overall, the number of new vehicles registered was 13,397 – a fall of 14.6 per cent on the same month last year, even though February 2012 had one extra trading day.

On a cumulative basis, the number of cars registered for the first time so far this year has fallen by 5.9 per cent when compared to the first two months of 2011.

When broken down by brand, Volkswagen was the most popular brand of new and used (imported) cars registered for the first time last month, accounting for 1,930 vehicles, ahead of Toyota on 1,901 and Ford on 1,658.

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