Number of 2022 car sales in Kilkenny revealed
A total of 536 new cars were registered in Kilkenny city and county last month, an increase of just two on January 2021.
They are among 25,000 new vehicles that were registered across the country in the first month of the year, new figures published by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) reveal.
New cars registrations for the month of January are down slightly -0.2 (25,093) when compared to January 2021 (25,140). Light Commercial vehicles (LCV) are up slightly 0.7% (5,055) compared to January last year (5,022). HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) registrations are also showing a small decrease of 1.5% (332) in comparison to January 2021 (337).
Used car imports seen a 40.8% (4,041) decrease in January when compared with January 2021 (6,821).
New electric car registrations reached their highest month on record with 2,714 registered in January 2022 (+178%), compared to 977 January 2021.
Battery technology cars have seen the greatest increase in market share for January, accounting for over 46% of the new car market. There was a significant increase in growth for hybrid (26.5%), plug-in hybrid (8.4%) and electric (10.8%) market share. Despite a large decrease in market share for internal combustion engine type vehicles, petrol is now dominant (28.6%), while Diesel declined to (22.4%).
Automatic transmissions (57.1%) have increased their market share for January overtaking manual transmissions (42.8%) in popularity for the first time.
Commenting on the new vehicle registrations SIMI Director General Brian Cooke said: “New car registrations in January are in line with last year. Sales are still 22% behind pre-pandemic levels (2019), largely due to supply
chain issues arising from various lockdowns.
“With retailers reporting strong order banks and with expected improvements in supply as the year progresses, this should lead to both an improving new car market and a more even spread of sales in 2022. Also the trade-ins against January new car sales will have increased supply of used car stock, which means greater variety and volume for interested used car buyers in the weeks ahead.”
