Nearly one in four western Europeans plans to buy a new car this year, with Volkswagen and Peugeot topping shopping lists, according to a survey by market research firm ACNielsen. The findings were released this week from a consumer survey of more than 14,000 internet users in 28 countries across the Asia Pacific region, Europe and North America in October.
The survey comes as car sales figures here for the first quarter showed a 14.4 per cent rise, with 88,000 new cars sold from the start of the year to the end of March. Toyota remains top of the rankings with 13.5 per cent of the market, followed by Ford with just under 12 per cent.
The latest figures also show a return to form for the Ford Focus, which is now the best-selling car in Ireland with 5,624 sales to the end of March. It takes the place of the Toyota Corolla which falls to third, behind the biggest success story in recent years, the Toyota Avensis. It's in second place so far this year with sales of 4,449.
In the family car segment, the Avensis has a strong lead over competitors such as the Skoda Octavia and Ford Mondeo. The Peugeot 407 has done well in this year's sales, taking fourth place in the family segment.
At the premium end, the Mercedes E-Class continues to record a strong lead against the BMW 5-Series and the Audi A6, but the new BMW 3-Series is already making headway, overtaking the C-Class, though still some way from toppling Audi's A4 from the top of the small premium segment. However, competition is likely to increase once the more popular smaller engine derivatives arrive in the autumn.
While welcoming the increase in car sales, Cyril McHugh of the SIMI said it's important to highlight the simultaneous increase of the total tax take from motorists in the same quarter, which was 18 per cent. He said motorists paid the exchequer €555m in Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) and €279m in VAT so far this year.
"Given the enormous taxation burden on the motorist, it's time for the Government to follow the European Commission's strong recommendation and start to phase out the iniquitous VRT system."