Right now Honda is experiencing its best ever car sales performance in the UK nudging 50,000 units at the half year point. This represents a gain of 13% over the same period last year, and is equivalent to 15 months worth of Honda car sales a decade ago.
Key to such impressive statistics has been the company’s recent success in the corporate market. For the year to date, Honda has escalated fleet sales by 36% to establish itself as a regular top10 fleet supplier.
Locally built cars at Honda’s Swindon plant have contributed much towards this result with sales of the Civic 5 door – the company’s strongest fleet model – rising 38% year on year.
But the Accord is fast gaining ground with total Accord fleet sales now running at nearly three times the rate achieved last year. The new i-CTDi diesel models are proving especially popular, accounting for 40% of the saloon mix and 55% of the Tourer (estate) mix – and this despite the diesels not being introduced until Spring this year. The Tourer, incidentally, is responsible for one quarter of all Accord sales.
Other strong fleet sales performances were recorded by the Jazz (13% up), S2000 (28% up) and the Civic IMA saloon which continues to be Britain’s best selling petrol electric model in the very discriminating corporate sector. Much of the IMA’s success can be attributed to its popularity with Britain’s Police, Fire and Ambulance Services – as well as organisations like Whitbread. Budgens, Customs & Excise, keen to exploit the model’s impressive green credentials.
"The good news for us is that we are not only growing our sales through the new diesel models, instead, we have increased the sales of all our models including the petrol variants," says Honda (UK)’s Head of Corporate Sales, James Daulton. "The Honda range is increasingly being seen by drivers as the first choice due to the exciting combination of race bred chassis and engine technology with low emissions and fuel consumption. This is proving an irresistible formula for drivers looking for an alternative to the usual German marques," he added.
To read our in depth road test of the Honda Accord Tourer [ click here ]
To read our in depth road test of the Honda Civic IMA [ click here ]
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