Two increase fleet sales as figures fall

ONLY two manufacturers out of the best-selling top 10 have increased their sales to fleets this year, latest figures show.

Vauxhall's year-to-date sales are up by 4.58% to 173,647 units compared with 166,037 for the same period last year, and Volkswagen's are up by 0.44%, 63,880 units compared with 63,597 units.

As reported in last week's Fleet News, total fleet sales for the year to date are down by more than 2% but business car sales to sub-25 fleets have increased.

Business sales so far this year total 209,080 units, an increase of 7.6% on the same period last year, but sales to companies with bigger fleets have fallen by 2.2%, to 836,178 units.

Among the biggest sales increases were Volkswagen's Polo, up by almost 71% to 12,228 units, the Ford Fiesta, up almost 35% to 30,871 units and Vauxhall's Corsa, up by more than 24% to 51,196 units.

For the year-to-date's best-seller, the Ford Focus, sales were down by more than 15% to 68,890 units.

For the month of September, fleet sales were down 4.3% to 161,248 units, while business sales were up 10.4% to 53,992 units, when compared to the same month last year.

Combined, the two markets for the year-to-date account for 50.4% of the market and for September, 49% of the market.

Diesel sales so far this year are up, by almost 8.5% to 267,955 units from 247,012 units in 2002, but petrol sales to the fleet industry are down by 6.54% to 568,216 units from 607,947.