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