UK March 2016: First half-million sales month this century

BMW UK sales are up 21% in March to 32.470. 

* See the Top 10 best-selling models and Top 40 All-brands by clicking on the title *

With volumes up 5% year-on-year to an outstanding 518.707 registrations, the UK new car market marks only its third ever time above half a million monthly units, and the first time since the bi-annual plate change took place in 1999. The year-to-date total is up 5% to 771.780 units for the first Quarter. Private sales lag behind the market with a 4% increase to 262.215 units and 50.6% share vs. 51.3% a year ago, while fleet are up 6% to 232.729 and 44.9% and business sales up 15% to 23.763. Ford keeps the lead despite sales down 5% to 60.349, above Vauxhall (+7%) and Volkswagen down just one sale on March 2015. BMW is galloping towards the top of the sales charts with volumes up 21% to 32.470 and maintaining its luxury lead over Audi at 30.483 (+5%) and Mercedes a 30.243 (+14%).

Jaguar sales are up 45% in March. Picture autoexpress.co.uk 

Further down, Land Rover is up a splendid 18% to historically break into the Top 10 at #10 with 18.234 sales, detaching such mass manufacturers as Renault (+13%), Hyundai (+2%), Kia (+8%), Citroen or Fiat. Jaguar (+45%), Lexus (+27%), Smart (+88%), Ssangyong (+115%) and Infiniti (+156%) shine. Model-wise, the whopper sales figures pull the ranking back to a more familiar look, with the Top 7 best-sellers now in the same order as in FY2015: the Fiesta (-13%), Corsa (-10%) and Focus (-9%) are in front despite significant drops, followed by the VW Golf (+10%), Nissan Qashqai (-7%), VW Polo (+2%) and Vauxhall Astra, up just 3% in spite of the arrival of the new generation. Fleet favourites, the Mini and Fiat 500 reapear inside the Top 10 whereas the Vauxhall Mokka drops out but holds onto a #10 ranking year-to-date.

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One year ago: UK March 2016: Nissan Qashqai hits record in best month this century

Full March 2016 Top 10 models and Top 40 All-brands below.