Close Brothers Motor Finance won the Trust Award at the FS Awards 2024 in late October. It was an absolute pleasure to receive the award alongside several colleagues. Given the award’s title, I’m sure you’ll appreciate that this was a massive boost to us. I hope our Trust status helps when discussing us with your customers.
We all recognise that the showroom is just one of the places where people can find their car and the finance many need. In today’s increasingly digital environment, multiple places/platforms are available to them. In this ever-evolving market, our long-term collaborations with dealers on platforms such as Done Deal and Cars Ireland highlight our commitment to promoting finance solutions digitally and creating opportunities for our dealer partners proactively.
Consumer confidence rises
The latest Irish confidence survey published on October 25th provided three key takeaways:
- An optimistic perspective for the months ahead
- Reduced job worries and cost pressures improve purchasing intentions
- Post-Budget, the outlook for household finances improves
Dealers continue to show their agility
Car sales figures at the end of October revealed that new car sales for the month fell 1.2% year on year. Nevertheless, on an annualised basis, they’re up 9.7%, with LCV sales improving 8% over the same period.
The real positive, in my view, comes from used cars, with imported used cars seeing an impressive 38.5% increase year on year and imports up 25.9%.
The challenge for new cars is linked to electric vehicles. At the end of October, sales of new EVs were down 25.4% compared to 2023. However, when it comes to EVs, EU sales fell by just 5.8%, and battery electric cars increased their market share to 17.3% (hybrid sales fell significantly).
We're behind what is arguably a shaky curve when it comes to EV adoption, which may have something to do with the increase in used car imports as dealers look for used petrol and diesel. However, with new Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) sales rising rapidly and new diesel sales falling significantly in the UK, it seems inevitable that more important stock will become electric.
