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VAT rise to lift December market
Date: 27 August 2010 | Author: Tristan Young
Nissan's UK boss expects the VAT rise scheduled for the start of next year to have a "significant" effect on the December 2010 market as fleet buyers pull forward purchasing decisions.
Speaking to BusinessCar, managing director Paul Wilcox said: "I think there will be a double digit percentage pull forward, people will change purchase timing to fit."
Wilcox added he didn't expect many car makers to absorb the increase or run special VAT offers: "2.5% is a lot to support and manufacturers can't do it long term."
Commenting on total sales for the industry this year Wilcox said he expected the year to end at 1.95 million units despite the fact "the underlying market is very weak".
Wilcox said he expected Nissan to perform well in the second half of the year and into 2011 and that fleet sales would support the overall market total. "Our market share is up in the past two years and is now at 4.1%. In June our share was 5.3%, which puts us ahead of Toyota. Nissan will get beyond 5% market share next year," he said.
The Juke is expected to help this market share with 20,000 sales in 2011, one-third of which are expected to go to fleet.
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