- Ford was up, now it’s down – again
- Registrations decline -10.4% in April with 120,331 units registered
- EV registrations rise 8.1% – but market share at 20.4% still below Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate requirement
- BYD heads fastest climbers in April new car sales
THERE’S a roller coaster feel to Ford sales at the moment. March performance was exceptional – but April returned to the usual lacklustre territory that has come to characterise a brand that was once market leading.
April’s new car figures saw Ford flop into negative territory with a drop of more than 14% for the month, which was 1,146 units fewer than April 2024.
Year-to-date Ford is still up on 2024 with a market share just below 6%, but now only by 990 units.
The SMMT attributed the market’s April drop to buyers registering cars ahead of tax changes last month. But Ford, with its model mix showing fewer EVs and best-selling Puma coming in under the £40,000 VED band break, should have put the Blue Oval in a strong position.
What’s more, April also saw Ford launch its all-electric version of the Puma, the Gen-E. Significant supply of the new model has yet to materialise, yet significant discounting has already begun with retailers offering an unprompted near-£2,000 reduction.
April swing
Plummeting April new car registrations have significantly dented the gains made in the bumper March. The overall market swung from being 12% up in March to being 10% down in April compared to the same months last year. As a result, the year-to-date is less than half what it was at the end of Q1. In the first four months of 2025 the new car market is up nearly 3.1%.
The SMMT expects the rest of the year to see further erosion of that figure with the new forecast set at just 0.6% up on 2024 to hit 1.964 million new cars in 2025.
Audi and Nissan units lose more sales than Jaguar
Audi and Nissan are in the unenviable position of having seen their registrations, in terms of unit numbers, drop more this year than Jaguar, a brand which has deliberately (if temporarily) exited the market and registered zero cars in April. While Jaguar is down more than 6,300 cars in 2025, Nissan is down more than 6,400 and Audi is down nearly 6,900 in the first four months of 2025.
Audi’s April drop was second only to its sister brand Volkswagen. Both the declines by VW and Audi were equivalent to 1% market share in April. Despite VW’s fall it is still the biggest single brand in the market and year-to-date has both a 9% share and is running up 16.6% or more than 9,000 units.
Nissan retailers that have spoken to Broker News report that marketing and incentives from the manufacturer dried up in April and that business is currently “difficult”.
After Audi, Nissan and Jaguar, the bottom five brands are completed with Citroen and SEAT (and if you don’t count Jaguar, then Honda is the next worst performer).
Fastest climbers, units gained YTD
Fastest fallers, units lost YTD
1 BYD +10,171
2 Volkswagen +9,039
3 Peugeot +8,854
4 Volvo +4,766
5 Jaecoo +4,288
5 SEAT -5,788
4 Citroen -6,135
3 Jaguar -6,363
2 Nissan -6,449
1 Audi -6,892
Source: SMMT
BYD heads April fast climbers
With a feeling of inevitability, Chinese new entrant brand BYD has become the fastest growing brand year-to-date in terms of units registered. A month ago it was up nearly 8,000 units, now April’s stats have added more than 2,000 cars over the 2024 figure taking the brand to a market share of 1.7%. A year ago it accounted for less than a quarter of a percent.
BYD is understood to be aiming to hit registrations of close to 60,000 this year, equivalent to 3% market share.
Fellow Chinese brand Jaecoo also saw a significant hike in volume with a gain of more than 1,000 cars this month and more than 4,000 year-to-date. However, Jaecoo only went on sale earlier this year.
What else did we see in April 2025 registrations?
- BEV registrations continue to improve, after four months the market is now 20.7% EV, a gain of 35% on this time last year. PHEVs are also running up 27%, with diesel down 13% and petrols including hybrids down 5%.
- Comment: “In March’s Spring Statement, the government chose not to introduce any BEV incentives for private buyers, so it’s little surprise that in April BEV sales were once again dominated by fleet. Despite this, demand data on the Carwow platform provides cause for optimism. BEV enquiries were up 61% year-on-year in April, with a 21% rise for PHEVs. We’re also seeing growing interest in Chinese EVs brands. BYD’s Seal and Sealion 7 topped our 10 most-viewed reviews last month.”
Philipp Sayler von Amende – Chief Commercial Officer, Get Your Car. - While Audi is having a very poor 2025, both its German rivals are also down this year. BMW is running down nearly 5% and Mercedes is down more than 6.6%.
- Tesla, which recently launched the new Model Y (below), is near flat YTD, but had a very poor April with a 62% drop over the same month in 2024.
Read our analysis of March new car registrations
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Tristan Young is an award winning journalist with more than 25 years’ experience reporting on the automotive industry focussing predominantly on fleet and retail. As a self-confessed petrol-head, Tristan has a weakness for car classifieds. When he’s not writing about the automotive industry, he can usually be found outdoors with a small pack of border collies.
