Scrappage scheme boosts Hyundai sales

On the day that the UK car industry releases its first set of post scrappage sales figures one manufacturer is bucking the trend by revealing the sharpest order increase in its company history.

The monthly figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders are expected to show a continued slump in overall car sales in May. But Hyundai today reported that they have received 9,000 orders in the first two weeks of the UK scrappage scheme – a rise of 750% over normal levels - and have achieved a year on year increase in sales of 40%. Last May the company sold 2,434 vehicles.

Last month’s SMMT figures showed a 24 percent drop in new car registrations to 133,475 units. Prior to the budget, car sales had been in sharp decline as the recession cut into household and business budgets. The government hopes the scheme will cause an upturn in orders and help revive the industry.

Tony Whitehorn, MD of Hyundai UK is confident of mirroring their sales performance in Germany, where sales of the low-emission city car, the i10, grew by over 600 per cent as a result of scrappage – the biggest increase of any model.

Hyundai sold 29,000 cars in the UK last year and is already the only volume car company to grow year on year sales.

Tony Whitehorn, Hyundai UK’s managing director, said “It has certainly been an amazing month for us, but we could have sold even more cars if we could have got them. Our dealers have taken more than 9,000 orders in the past four weeks – that’s almost a third of the total number of cars we sold in all of 2008, and a massive 750 percent increase in the number we’d normally expect to see in a month.

“Our import centre at Tilbury is working flat-out for 24 hours a day to make sure the cars get out to dealers as soon as possible, and then on to the customers who are waiting for their new Hyundai.”