Fleet registrations rise in January

04 Feb 2010 21:43

The fleet industry saw a positive start to the year, with registrations up for both fleets and the sub-25 business sector. This was backed up by a rise in overall new car registrations, which were up 29.8% in January to 145,479 units.

Figures from the SMMT show that a total of 72,726 vehicles were registered to fleets last month, up 24.4% on the figure of 58,446 for January 2009.

And a total of 7,638 units were registered to sub-25 business fleets, a rise of 8.5% on January 2008's total of 7,038.

The SMMT said that the growth in fleet demand was encouraging news for a sustaining demand post scrappage. However, the January market was again primarily supported by improved private registrations, which were up 39.7%.

'The 29.8% increase in January new car registrations provides a better than expected start to 2010 for the UK motor industry,' said Paul Everitt, SMMT chief executive. 'Scrappage continues to lift demand successfully and today's announcement of a continuation of the scheme to the end of March will allow the maximum number of people to benefit from the budget that's still available.

'Industry expects another difficult year with the availability of finance, consumer confidence and sustaining demand post-scrappage, key to performance in the second half of the year, but signs of recovery in the fleet and business sectors are encouraging,' he concluded.

Category: Industry News
Keywords: SMMT,