The new car market had a positive start to 2015, as registrations grew 6.7% year-on-year to 164,856 in January, according to Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) statistics.
This was the 35th consecutive month of rising sales, extending the record growth period.
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Overall growth came despite that fact that private vehicles sales dropped for the first time since December 2011. 67,636 new cars for private use were registered in January 2015, a 5.1% drop compared to the same month in 2014.
Instead, fleet vehicle sales were the main driver for registration growth, growing by 13,711 year-on-year to reach 89,640. This 18.1% rise boosted the sectors market share to 54.4%.
Despite the fact that alternatively-fuelled vehicle registrations have a low market share, they witnessed the highest growth last month. There were 4,598 new cars of this type registered in January, which was a 60.8% increase year-on-year.
Ford remained the best-selling brand in the UK market with 21,480 vehicles sold, despite a slight fall in gross numbers, followed by Vauxhall (16,935) and Volkswagen (13,993). Audi remained at the fourth place of the list with 11,354, just 278 units ahead of Nissan which saw a 26% growth year-on-year.
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By GlobalDataFord Fiesta was the best-selling vehicle in the month, with 8,674 cars registered in January, followed by Vauxhall Corsa (6,879) and Ford Focus (4,824).
Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said: "These figures mark an encouraging start to the year after a very strong 2014, with a strikingly robust company car market as businesses take advantage of the attractive finance offers currently available.
"Last year’s 9.3% rise in the overall market was fuelled by stronger than expected economic confidence and, for 2015, we expect to see some levelling off throughout the year: demand is back to pre-recession levels following record-breaking growth."
Chris Sutton, managing director at Black Horse commented on the January figures: "The overall UK car market continues to be a beacon of success with both consumers and businesses demonstrating a clear willingness to purchase new cars.
"Manufacturers and dealers also believe that low rate finance has helped to sell new cars so we expect this to continue and this will be helped by the expectation that interest rates will rise at a later date than previously expected."
