LCV market stabilises in March as new van demand dips slightly

March showed a marked increase in demand from February for new vans, as buyers snapped up new 17-plate vans. Vansdirect reports on March LCV sales figures.

Statistics published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) have today revealed the statistics which show a marked increase from February 2017, but also showed a small dip in registrations of 0.9 percent in comparison with March 2017. Over 63,000 registrations were made last month, a figure very close to March 2016 record high, but the first decline in March for five years was recorded.

New van registrations

The small decline comes after the LCV market stabilised succeeding a continued period of solid growth and record breaking demand. Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive attributed the slight dip in registrations to a "natural rebalancing of the market" and despite the decline he recognised that demand has remained at a record breaking high level. Hawes also stated that "We expect demand to remain stable at this high level throughout the year."

Sales of Large vans showed a marked increase of 3.6 percent following the drop of 1.3 percent in February, sales of medium vans dropped 4 percent, while small vans were the biggest casualty on last years' figures with a decline of 31.6 percent. Whereas there was a significant increase in the sales of pick-up vans, sales increased 23 percent on March 2016 with 9660 units registered.

March's best-selling new vans

The top 10 best-seller chart does see some marked changes, however the top selling van, the Ford Transit Custom remains as the most popular selling a staggering 6036 more units than any other van. The Ford Transit dropped to third in the table, replaced in second in the table by the Volkswagen Transporter jumping 3 places in the table. February's big beneficiary, the Mercedes Sprinter dropped down one place as a resultant of the impressive sales of the Volkswagen Transporter. Another improvement can be seen in fifth, where the Renault Trafic improved 3 places, forcing the Vauxhall Vivaro and Ford Transit Connect to drop in the table. The Peugeot Boxer rose one place to ninth, representing the large van sector well.

Small vans, Citroen Berlingo and the Peugeot Partner dropped of the top 10 list to be replaced at eighth and tenth on the list by the Nissan Navara and Mitsubishi L200 respectively, outlining the comprehensive increase in new pick -up van sales.

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