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On this Saturday’s episode of MotorTradeRadio.com, Philip Nothard, head of external relations at Cox Automotive, is joined by Curtis Hutchinson, editor at Motor Trader to discuss the latest headlines.
The big story of the week was the release of the Motor Trader Top 200 Franchised Dealers, the annual survey of the performance of the franchised car retailing sector, which revealed record profits and turnover for the sector.
The Motor Trader Top 200 dealer groups turned in a record performance in 2017 with pre-tax profits up 9.9% to £1.07bn on turnover up 12.4% to a new high of £68.9bn.
The average return on sales dipped from 1.3% to 1.24% during the year but the return on sales for the Top 25 dealer groups ranged from 2.1% to 5.8%
There was a major move in the used car market with Sytner, the UK’s largest dealer group, buying The Car People, its second used supermarket purchase in 2017
The Finance & Leasing Association revealed that new cars sold by dealers on finance fall 7% in October although the used car market turned in a stronger performance.
And market leader Ford announced that it was extending its scrappage scheme for new cars and vans into Q1 2018.