Light commercial vehicle market down in April

“Following a very strong period, registrations of light commercial vehicle registrations decreased by -18.8% in April. It is concerning to see that the 2.5 – 3.5t segment, which is usually very resilient, declined substantially by -23.1%”, said Sue Robinson, Director of the National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA) which represents franchised car and commercial vehicle dealers in the UK, commenting on the SMMT’s light commercial vehicle registration figures.

Light commercial vehicle registrations declined by -18.8% in April, with 22,625 units registered. Year to date, the market is now -4.9 down on last year with 120,595 units registered in the first four months of the year, compared with the 126,786 units of the same period in 2016.

Following strong results, the 2.5 - 3.5t vans, which are usually purchased by corporate fleet, saw a worrying decline of -23.1%. 

Mid-size vans of 2.0-2.5t remained stable with a slight decrease of -0.2%, to 3,421 units. Vans under 2t were down by -37.5% in April, similarly to their year to date performance.

Albeit a small segment of the overall market, the positive trend which has characterised the pickups segment over the past few months continued in April with an improvement of 4.5% on last year.

Top three best-selling models for April were again the Ford Transit Custom, the Ford Transit and the VW Transporter.

Sue Robinson, NFDA Director, continued, “April’s figures confirmed that many registrations were previously pushed to the first quarter of the year affecting this month’s performance; going forward, the latter part of the second quarter is likely to show more positive results.”