It’s time once more for the Car Makers Premier League where each and every month we examine the top 20 manufacturers by number of units registered and see just how they look when compared with the previous month. At the end of the year who will be crowned champion? Who will drop out of the top 20 as the year unfolds and which high achievers will be promoted?
We carry on the season with June’s statistics (based on the SMMT new car registration figures for June 2012) and they are up 3.5% on last June (which was 6.2% down on the previous year), with an increase of 6,389 units to 189,514 cars registered for the month. However with pre-registration rife again in the trade at the moment we need to take this with a large pinch of salt.
According to the figures the market is up 2.7% in the first 6 months of the year to 1,057,680 units leading to the SMMT revising its full year forecast to 1.95 million units.
So let’s have a closer look at which manufacturers have improved and the ones which may need to go to their rooms and have a long hard think about what they have (or haven’t) done.
This month the top 12 positions all outperformed the market and all in all 14 manufacturers managed to improve on June 2011 meaning only 6 of the top twenty turned in negative results (Fiat, Volvo, Ford, Peugeot, Vauxhall and, of course, Renault). The top 3 of Honda (up 4 places to number 1), Land Rover (down one from 2) and Hyundai (up 5 from 9th last month) are streets ahead of the rest with 73%, 46% and 38% gains respectively.
The biggest climbers this month are Nissan, up from 18th last month to 5th in June with an impressive 23% improvement and MINI, up to 6th from 19th last month with a creditable 21% gain.
The biggest faller is Fiat dropping 11 places from 4th to 15th with a somewhat average 1% decline on June last year.
Biggest unit shifter in the top 20 this month was once again Ford (slipping 5 places with a 3% decline) with 24,461 cars registered for the month (16% of the top 20 total). Behind them are Vauxhall (slipping 6 places to 19th with a very poor 10% reverse) with 23,613 units (15.4% of the total) and in third VW (moving up 4 places to 12th with a respectable 4% increase) with 16,447 (10.1%).
Renault are still firmly rooted to the bottom it would seem after another disastrous month which sees them recording a extraordinarily bad 57% drop in units registered (4,106 to be precise) disturbing times indeed for the French manufacturer.
The German manufacturer’s dominance of the top 10 may be back on the horizon after all with 4 of the top 10 positions now being taken up by German owned brands with MINI, BMW, SEAT and Mercedes flying the Deutschlandfahne.
The SMMT are naturally positive with chief Executive Paul Everitt commenting “Driven by demand from private buyers, June new car registrations grew 3.5% to push 2012 half year volumes through the one million mark,” said Paul Everitt, SMMT Chief Executive. “Despite domestic and international economic concerns, UK motorists are responding positively to new products and the latest fuel-efficient technology. The industry has performed better than expected in the first half of the year and we will now need to work hard to sustain growth.”
However with growing reports of forced registrations all may not be as it at first appears and some caution should be attached when taking the seemingly positive results at first value.
Just saying.
Car Makers Premier League June 2012
| POS | Manufacturer | Jun-11 | Jun-12 | Diff | % |
| 1(5) |  | 3,308 | 5,726 | 2,418 | 73 |
| 2(1) |  | 2,583 | 3,772 | 1,189 | 46 |
| 3(8) |  | 5,351 | 7,362 | 2,011 | 38 |
| 4(2) |  | 5,664 | 7,098 | 1,434 | 25 |
| 5(18) |  | 8,763 | 10,818 | 2,055 | 23 |
| 6(19) |  | 5,917 | 7,151 | 1,234 | 21 |
| 7(3) |  | 5,097 | 5,971 | 874 | 17 |
| 8(15) |  | 12,419 | 14,302 | 1,883 | 15 |
| 9(11) |  | 3,072 | 3,431 | 359 | 12 |
| 10(7) |  | 7,400 | 8,211 | 811 | 11 |
| 11(14) |  | 5,096 | 5,463 | 367 | 7 |
| 12(16) |  | 16,447 | 17,121 | 674 | 4 |
| 13(9) |  | 10,701 | 10,936 | 235 | 2 |
| 14(6) |  | 6,261 | 6,381 | 120 | 2 |
| 15(4) |  | 4,741 | 4,678 | (63) | (1) |
| 16(17) |  | 3,237 | 3,146 | (91) | (3) |
| 17(12) |  | 24,461 | 23,654 | (807) | (3) |
| 18(10) |  | 9,471 | 8,708 | (763) | (8) |
| 19(13) |  | 23,613 | 21,334 | (2,279) | (10) |
| 20(20) |  | 7,205 | 3,099 | (4,106) | (57) |
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