Tucson tops as Hyundai lead sales league in Kilkenny

Kilkenny set its own buying trends in the new car market during the crucial month of January 2018.
The Kilkenny sales trend differed in a number of ways from national results.
The best of the good news for the industry locally was that a considerable national drop of -4.9% in sales was not repeated in Kilkenny.
Here sales figures held up well - 858 units in 2018 against 861 in 2017 - which kept the fall off in sales to a slim -0.35%.
The was the best in the country in terms of curtailing the loss of sales.
The biggest fall off in sales throughout the country was in Cavan, where the slide was a considerable -17.42% on sales figures of 426 units againsts 528 in 2017.
The top selling makes in Kilkenny were - 1 Hyundai; 2 Ford; 3 Toyota; 4 Volkswagen; 5 Nissan.
The best selling models were - 1 Hyundai Tucson; 2 Nissan Qashqai; 3 Ford Focus; 4 Ford Fiesta; 5 Toyota Yaris.
Nationally the top five makes were - 1 Toyota 11.83%; 2 Hyundai 10.59%; 3 Ford 10.07%; 4 Volkswagen 9.67%; 5 Nissan 7.74%.
The top selling cars nationally were - 1 Huyndai Tucson; 2 Nissan Qashqai; 3 Ford Focus; 4 VW Golf; 5 Ford Fiesta.
Hatchbacks are the most common choice (11,998) but only just from the ever improving MPVs (11,729) with saloon sales now well down at 5,873, a staggering drop of 28.5%.
The 181 January car sales were 37,125 as against 39,003 in January 2017.
The 2018 forecast of new car sales is 118,220 (-10%), with the used import market set to hit 114,950 (+20%).
The Exchequer benfitted to the tune of €1.49 billion from car sales in 2017.