Fleet share down as vehicle sales recover

After three years of falling sales, the new car market is finally showing the first signs of recovery although the fleet share of the overall market is down slightly by 0.1%.

Figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show that June’s total sales were 1.5% up on the same month last year - continuing a four-month period of growth.

In total, 222,863 new cars were sold - up 8,000 on the SMMT’s forecast - prompting the organisation to revise its full-year forecast up from 2.35 million units.

Unusually, it is private buyers who are fuelling much of the growth with sales up 2% year-on-year thanks to a raft of showroom offers.

Fleet’s share of June’s market was down to 110,907 units, while sales to businesses running 25 vehicles or fewer rose by 10.2% to 17,239 sales.

The figures also revealed that Ford has maintained its position as the best-selling brand in fleet, despite some potential customers waiting for the arrival of the new Mondeo.

However, Focus and Fiesta continue to sell well and S-MAX and Galaxy are picking up in the MPV sector.

Elsewhere, Peugeot continued to enjoy massive demand for its 207 range, with fleet sales hitting 12,635 last month.

Vauxhall saw fleet sales rise fractionally in whilst Audi showed the biggest rise – up 37.4%.