Polo jumps one place in UK top 10 March 2012 best-sellers list
The Volkswagen Polo has jumped one place up the UK top 10 best-sellers list. According to figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) for March 2012, the small Volkswagen was the seventh best-selling car last month with 7748 sales, three places behind its larger Golf relative. March was a bumper month for supermini sales, with half the cars in the best-sellers list of a smaller persuasion. Even the misguided youth-orientated advertising campaign for the new Toyota Yaris seems to have worked positively, with the model chasing the Polo’s tyre tracks in eighth.
March’s 372,835 units bettered the SMMT’s forecast for the month by some 20,000 units or almost 6 per cent, and looks set to beat the 18 per cent share of total annual volumes by 1.4 per cent. Supermini registrations rose in both March and Q1, to account for 39.1 per cent and 37.7 per cent respectively of the market. ‘The important March new car market performed above expectations rising 1.8 per cent to 372,835 units. Domestic demand for new cars is showing signs of recovery with private buyers increasingly returning to take advantage of a wide range of excellent products and, this month, the new 12-plate,’ said Paul Everitt, SMMT Chief Executive. The top 10 UK best-selling cars in March 2012 and for the year overall (sales figure and position in brackets) are as follows:
1 Ford Fiesta: 22,667 (33,390, 1st)
2 Vauxhall Corsa: 17,271 (23,750, 3rd)
3 Ford Focus: 15,086 (24,442, 2nd)
4 Volkswagen Golf: 11,945 (18,794, 4th)
5 Vauxhall Astra: 9965 (14,894, 5th)
6 Nissan Qashqai: 8487 (12,491, 6th)
7 Volkswagen Polo: 7748 (12,164, 7th)
8 Toyota Yaris: 6973
9 Peugeot 207: 6948 (10,221, 8th)
10 BMW 3 Series: 6472 (9948, 9th)
(The 2012 year-to-date top 10 best-selling car absent from March’s sales figures is the Mercedes-Benz C Class selling 9485 units in tenth place.)