The Mini has achieved its highest share of the UK car market since its relaunch in 2001, new sales figures from parent company BMW show.
The iconic marque notched up sales of nearly 44,000 last year, an increase of more than 10 per cent on 2009 and enough to give it a market share of more than two per cent. The sales boost also made the Mini the UK’s ninth best-selling car of 2010.
The news will be welcomed by the 900-plus workers at BMW’s Swindon Pressings business, which manufacturers most of the Mini’s body panels for assembly at a sister plant in Oxford.
The Mini’s strong performance also helped BMW Group UK clock up a rise of 10.8 per cent to just over 153,000 when added to sales of BMW-badged cars.
BMW Group UK managing director Tim Abbott said: “Both BMW and Mini brands have outperformed the market and in particular we have seen significant growth coming from the company car market. The new Mini Countryman has made an immediate impact with customers now waiting until the spring for delivery of their vehicles.”
He described the outlook for 2011 as “challenging”, particularly in the first six months, but said: “We remain cautiously optimistic and we are going into the new year with a strong forward order position with our order bank double the size compared to this time last year.”
BMW Group UK’s sales figures buck the gloomy trend in the UK car industry. Latest estimates from the industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) are for a five per cent fall in new car sales this year. It expects fleet car sales to hold steady but private sales are likely to slide amid what it called “difficult conditions”.
While total sales last year climbed by 1.8 per cent to just over two million, the increase was driven by a 10.3 per cent jump in fleet sales, said the SMMT, with private sales slumping by 5.6 per cent, partly due to the ending of the government’s scrappage incentive scheme in May.
