In official figures issued by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI), Ford has emerged as the top automotive brand in first three months of 2017 with a combined van and car sales tally of 10,292 vehicles.
The quarter one 2017 sales figure for Ford is a combination of 7,357 car registrations and 2,935 commercial vehicle (CV) registrations. The combined market for the first quarter of 2017 with a total of 88,892 units sold was down by 8.5 percent versus a year earlier (97,298 units). Ford’s total of 10,292 cars and van units for the three months put the blue oval ahead of VW with sales of 9,580 units and Toyota with a tally of 8,577 units.
Ford was also the top selling brand during March which saw total vehicle sales fall 7.6 percent versus March 2016 (from 25,246 units in March 2016 to 22.336 units in this past month). With sales of 1,849 cars and 846 van units, Ford had a combined total of 2,695; ahead of Nissan in second place with 2,469 and VW in third place with 2,396 units.
“It is very heartening for us as we celebrate 100 years of Ford in Ireland this year, to be the number one car and van brand in the country for the first quarter of 2017,” said Ciarán McMahon, Chairman and Managing Director of Ford Ireland. “Car and van sales got off to a good start in January but since then, they have fallen back somewhat and we are currently tracking at 8.5 percent of a drop versus 2016. However, we are hopeful that the remainder of 2017 can carry on the robustness the car industry has shown over the last few years.”
In terms of the top selling cars for March, Ford had two entries in the 10 top-selling models for the month with Focus (510 units) and Fiesta (477 units) coming in at 6th and 7th place respectively.
