SALES of new cars in Scotland saw a slight drop in January after a record year for sales in 2014.
The Scottish Motor Trade Association (SMTA) said it was "disappointed" with the figures, which show a 1.15 per cent drop on January 2013 to 12,674 new car registrations.
UK-wide figures reveal a 6.66 per cent increase, with a total of 164,856 new sales being registered last month compared to the 154,562 in January 2014.
Douglas Robertson, chief executive of the SMTA, said: "We are just a little bit disappointed at this small drop after the record year of 2014.
"However, it does confirm our prediction a few months ago that the market would settle down during 2015 without any great increases or decreases over the course of the year.
"Perhaps this slight drop reflects the fact that retail consumers purchases of new cars has fallen to below 50% for the first time for many, many months.
"That, in itself, might reflect a touch of overspending during the festivities!"
The figures, from the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT), show that only Strathclyde, Fife and Tayside saw an increase in new car sales, while the biggest drop was in Dumfries and Galloway.
The most popular car was a Vauxhall Corsa with 587 sales, followed by a Ford Fiesta (516) and a Fiat 500 (385).
Across the UK the increase was the 35th consecutive rise, with growth in company car registrations particularly strong - up 18.1 per cent on January last year.
A total of 4,598 alternatively-fuelled vehicles were also registered last month - an increase of 60.8 per cent.
Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, said: "These figures mark an encouraging start to the year after a very strong 2014, with a strikingly robust company car market as businesses take advantage of the attractive finance offers currently available.
"January saw increased uptake of both petrol and diesel cars, while demand for alternatively-fuelled vehicles continued its surge with registrations rising by 60.8%. Registrations of plug-in vehicles were particularly strong as consumers responded to a greater choice of makes and models delivering lower running costs.
"Last year's 9.3% rise in the overall market was fuelled by stronger than expected economic confidence and, for 2015, we expect to see some levelling off throughout the year: demand is back to pre-recession levels following record-breaking growth."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article