16 March 2015

Almost every year, at about this time, Auto Retail Network members start to hint about how tough their OEM-set targets are for the year ahead. However, this time there are a few differences.

It’s standard practice that if you add up all the manufacturer figures, then they exceed the SMMT’s own prediction for the year – that’s the nature of targets. They’re there to push people.

But this year the SMMT’s prediction is only just up on 2014’s and the majority of growth has come from fleet and not retail registrations. As far as I can tell, retailer targets are well ahead of minimal growth.

Even in the past week we’ve had Inchcape hinting at pressure to increase volumes of new cars. A day later, ASE also said profitability would be hit by fleet and self registrations.

In conversations I’ve had with retailers, all have brought up the topic of OEM targets in an way that tells me registration figures for later in the year could be best described as ‘interesting’.

Having also just done the rounds of the Geneva motor show and spoken to a host of UK MDs at manufacturers, they all say their growth will come from new models, and place sizeable year-end ‘aiming for’ figures on them.

And while new models usually mean a rise in sales, those increased registrations have to come from somewhere – or some other brand. So some brands will have sales defections.

What I’d really like to see is a chart showing what all the manufacturers are claiming for their targets this year so we can see how it fits with the SMMT’s prediction.

So, if this is something you’d like to see and if you want to help out, then let me know what you’ve been told your network has to achieve in terms of a percentage increase over last year, then drop me an email or give me a call and I promise not to reveal any sources.

I will, however, put together a table of the targets and share it with you.

Tristan Young

Tags: car sales totals, manufacturer targets, sales targets