ExpertEye European Automotive Report Q2 2016 | Page 11

UK daily sales seeing more even distribution .
Day registrations , pre-registrations and self-registrations are all pretty much the same thing . Dealers register cars enjoying higher discounts to offset the initial depreciation on the vehicles they will use as demonstrators . These registrations often happen towards the end of the month because dealers also use this as a way to hit their volume targets which unlocks backend bonuses .
The problem the industry has created across Europe is that dealers , supported by OEMs , have been using this as a way to get ultra-low mileage , very young cars at a transaction price which is more competitive than a brand new vehicle .
100 % 90 % 80 % 70 % 60 % 50 % 40 % 30 % 20 % 10 % 0 %
Rest of month
27.8 % 30.1 % 29.8 %
72.2 % 69.9 % 70.2 %
Last 5 days
57.8 %
42.2 %
2013-14
2014-15
2015-16
Share of ' 14-
' 15 growth
23.8 %
76.2 %
Share of ' 15- ' 16 growth
We took a snapshot of the UK ’ s SMMT daily registrations and analysed
Source : SMMT
the period from November to May for 2013-14 , 2014-15 and 2015-16 . Sales in the last five working days of the month still account for a disproportionate amount of sales , circa 28 % -30%, but whilst in 2014-15 57.8 % of the total growth in new car sales were done in those last five days , implying a high proportion were self-registrations , this has now fallen to just 23.8 % a year later .
It could be that self-registrations are still high but they are just being done earlier in the month but this would still be good news as it smoothes out daily sales . Although as you can see from the lower table even over the 2015-16 period there are still some OEMs with high backend loaded monthly sales .
2013-14
Total
Period
% last 5 days
2014-15
Total
Period
% last 5 days
2015-16
Total
Period
% last 5 days
Abarth
672
49.70 %
Jeep
3,994
55.90 %
MG
1,796
51.00 %
A Romeo
2,728
45.60 %
Abarth
926
54.60 %
Fiat
36,002
45.60 %
Renault
39,851
38.10 %
Fiat
37,721
52.60 %
Jeep
6,576
44.80 %
Chrysler
883
35.70 %
Chrysler
307
52.10 %
Abarth
1,718
44.20 %
Peugeot
66,032
35.60 %
A Romeo
2,440
51.10 %
Smart
5,094
42.20 %
Source : SMMT
European Automotive Report - 2016 Quarter 2 10