June UK new car sales show smallest decrease in four months

With a 34.9% decrease in June, the figures suggest a slight uplift of the British new car market

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The yearly new car registrations in the UK decreased by 34.9% in June – the smallest drop experienced since February, as reported by Reuters. This coincided with car showrooms reopening across the UK in the same month.

There were a total of 145, 377 new UK car registrations in June 2020, according to figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) on 6 July 2020.

While this is a significant build upon the 89% decrease experienced in May, this is in stark contrast to the year-to-date figures, which decreased by 48.5%. 

There were only 653,502 new cars on UK roads in the first half of the year – the last time numbers were this low was in 1971. In comparison, there were 1,269,245 new cars when looking at the 2019 year-to-date figures. 

In England, it was possible for car showrooms to reopen on 1 June, shortly followed by Northern Ireland, where car showrooms were expected to reopen from 8 June. 

The rest of the UK saw a delay in the easing of coronavirus-related restrictions: Welsh dealerships were allowed to reopen on 22 June, while Scottish dealers were able to reopen on 29 June.

Interestingly, insurance startup, and a Startups 100 2020 business, Cuvva, experienced a 76% increase between April 2020 and May 2020 from customers using it to either test drive a car or drive a recently bought car home.

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Scarlett writes for the energy and HR sections of the site, as well as managing the Just Started profiles. Scarlett is passionate about championing equality and sustainability in business.
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