Top five new car sale marques Statistics for the first six months of the year have revealed that despite the large number of used cars being imported into the country, the new car market is still growing at an impressive rate.
The figures released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry show that during the first half of the year new car sales rose by nearly 6 per cent, taking the total for the year to date to just short of 145,000 cars.
Just a few years ago that number of cars would represent a healthy full-year total.
However, since 1997 the number of new cars sold each year in Ireland has been creeping steadily upwards from a total of 115,100 ten years ago to over 154,000 last year.
By the end of 2006, mainly because of the impact of maturing SSIA savings accounts, the industry is predicting that the total number of new cars sold will be as high as 185,000 - a number that has only been exceeded once before, in 2000.
Even if this year's sales do not reach that high, there is widespread expectation that next year will be a bumper year for new car sales. But, as Eddie Murphy, managing director of Ford Ireland, explains, the industry still has its sights on selling more cars this year: "While SSIAs are not impacting on car sales yet, dealers are reporting an increase in queries, as people research the market in advance."
Ford, along with several other companies, is set to launch promotional offers to tempt SSIA savers into their showrooms.
"Such marketing programmes will stimulate the market in the coming months, probably raising full-year volumes to close to 185,000," predicts Murphy.
Traditionally, sales of new vehicles slow rapidly from May onwards as car buyers wait until the new year before purchasing. Despite this, sales of new vehicles during last month rose by more than 8 per cent when compared to 2005 figures. This means over 15,500 new cars left the forecourts last month, compared to just over 14,300 in June 2005.
Toyota remained Ireland's favourite marque and continues to enjoy strong sales, especially with its well-liked Corolla, which is just behind Ford's Focus as the country's most popular car.
Toyota is also benefiting from increased sales of its recently revised Avensis and Yaris, both of which appear in the top-ten list.
The Japanese manufacturer currently has over 13.8 per cent of the new car market and is set to be Ireland's favourite marque for another year. Although it is being chased by Ford, which has 11.3 per cent of the market, and VW, which is in a strong third position with just over 11 per cent.
Meanwhile, the motor industry is predicting that an unprecedented 70,000 used cars will enter the country by the end of the year. The majority of these imports are coming in from Britain, where a larger and generally better equipped and serviced stock of used cars is available.
While there is uncertainty about how severely this growing number of used imports will impact on the new car market, there is little doubt that new car sales will fall if buyers continue to look for second-hand cars abroad.
As Eddie Murphy explains: "Although there is little evidence of the market being affected in June by an influx of imported used cars, this issue does have negative implications for new car volumes."
This is a concern being voiced across the motor industry. "There is certainly a significant number of used cars coming into the country and that will impact on new car sales," says Stephen Tormey, sales director at Toyota. "Although this is not something that has impacted on us yet, if the trend continues it will be a concern for the motor industry."