Ireland March 2020: Peugeot (-37.4%), BMW (-46.7%) “resist” in market down -63%

Peugeot sports the slimmest drop among the Top 13 brands.

The closure of non-essential businesses across Ireland from March 13 as a measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus means Irish new car sales fall -63% year-on-year in March to just 6.173 units, leading to a year-to-date tally down -20.4% to 50.981. The Top 5 brands are all in line with the market drop: Volkswagen (-62.4%) distances Toyota (-60.6%), Hyundai (-61.7%), Skoda (-64.4%) and Ford (-70%). Peugeot (-37.4%) and BMW (-46.7%) both manage to significantly contain their losses inside the Top 10 while further down Tesla (+2860%) and Land Rover (+12.9%) are actually up with Porsche (-22.2%), Subaru (-30%), Mitsubishi (-26.8%), Mini (-40.6%), Lexus (-41.9%) and Opel (-47.6%) resisting somewhat.

Model-wise, the Toyota Corolla (-66.7%) reclaims the top spot for the 6th time in the past 13 months despite an even harsher drop than the market, consolidating its YTD pole position. The VW Tiguan (-44.3%) is nudged down to #2 ahead of the Ford Focus (-65.3%), Hyundai Tucson (-67.9%), Hyundai Kona (-51.8%) and VW Golf (-65.9%). The Tesla Model 3 is up 13 spots on February to #7, its second ever incursion inside the Irish Top 10 after leading the charts outright last November. It’s also the most popular recent launch (<12 months) above the Skoda Kamiq (#42), Ford Puma (#47) and Skoda Scala (#72). The Peugeot 3008 (-50.5%) is up 18 spots on last month to #8, the Toyota RAV4 (-41.5%) up 17 to #12 and the Peugeot 5008 (+4.2%) up 9 to #15.

Previous month: Ireland February 2020: VW Tiguan best-seller in market down -7.8%

One year ago: Ireland March 2019: Toyota Corolla snaps lead, market decline thins to -6%

Full March 2020 Top 30 All-brands and Top 190 All-models below.