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Finance sales are improving and so is dealership network in UK
publication date: Nov 16, 2011
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author/source: Robin Roberts
| In September, the new car motor finance market was up 11% by value compared with September 2010. | More than £1.1 billion was made available through motor dealerships for car purchases.
According
to the Finance and Leasing Association's latest figures, the used car
market also grew, providing £600 million for the purchase of over 66,000
used cars from dealerships across the country.
In total, around 150,000 people used dealer motor finance in September to buy a new or used car.
Over
the last 12 months, sixty per cent of people buying a new car used
motor finance provided through dealers - the largest market share for
some years.
Car leasing was up by 68% in Q3 2011 compared with the
previous year, hire-purchase by 11%, and Personal Contract Purchase (PCP
- currently the most popular finance product) by 9%.
The FLA has
explained to the Government that any further changes in consumer credit
regulation need to be considered very carefully, to avoid a
disproportionate adverse impact on the significant amount of credit
provided through intermediaries, including motor dealers.
Manganese Bronze Holdings, the company behind London's
iconic black cab, is planning to recruit up to 50 UK dealers to sell
Chinese-made Geely cars.
Group chief executive John Russell, whose
career has taken in stints with a number of carmakers, including Peugeot
and Land Rover, told Motor Trader he aims to start talking to dealers
next month with a view to holding a formal presentation of the Geely
brand.
| Dealerships are shaping up differently but can still thrive |
A new survey by business publication, Motor Trade
News, shows that the shape of the UK franchised dealer business is
changing, but not as much as some pundits might have you believe.
The
survey which was compiled with the help of data house, Automotive Data,
compares October 2010 with October 2011.
As a headline figure, the total number of franchised
outlets in the UK has reduced by 44 (0.7%) outlets from 6,322 in October
2010 to 6,278 in October 2011.
The UK franchised dealer market is
composed of 5,198 franchised sales and service outlets, 983 franchised
outlets which are Authorised Repair only and 97 franchised outlets which
are new vehicle sales only.
Between October 2010 and October 2011,
there were 413 entirely new franchised dealerships established.
Over
the past year, the largest
number of totally new dealerships was Hyundai who saw 29 new
franchisees. Equal second were Nissan and
Volkswagen with 21 apiece, closely followed by Isuzu's 19 and Skoda who opened 17. | | |
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