It’s time once more for the Car Makers Premier League where each and every month we examine the top 20 manufacturers with regards to units registered and just how they look when compared with the previous month. Who are the Chelsea’s, Man United’s and Arsenal’s at the top and the Portsmouth’s, Burnley’s and Hull’s bringing up the rear? At the end of the year who will be crowned champion? Who will drop out of the top 20 as the year unfolds and which high achievers will be promoted?

Carrying on with the season and April’s statistics (based on the SMMT figures for UK new car registrations in April 2010) continue to be relatively encouraging with all but four of the top twenty manufacturers posting an increase on April last year. The headline figure for the month is an 11.5% increase but it ought to be remembered that the market was already down 24.% in April 2009 on the year before. Overall the top 14 positions all outperformed the market this month.

March was the last month for scrappage but registrations carried forward still had a big impact with the SMMT revealing that just over 8% of the cars being registered in April were done so through the scheme.

This month there’s a return to the top for Kia with Hyundai slipping back to 3rd and storming back into the top twenty at number 2 are Seat (swapping places with Land Rover who drop out). Kia enjoyed a 137% increase on April last year, equating to an extra 3,020 units, Seat a 118% increase of 1,532 units and Hyundai a 107% increase of 2,327 units.

Renault slip back slightly to 4th with a 100% increase on last year and they continue the spectacular turnaround from last year’s whipping boys.

The table this month continues to produce a few “mini leagues” as behind the top four we have 2 manufactures in the 76% increase range, Mini and Volvo (1,236 and 1,536 extra units registered reflectively). Following on is a group of 4 manufacturers in the 38-58 percentage range (Fiat, Skoda, BMW and Nissan). Then we have a group of the remaining 4 manufacturers in double percentage figures (Audi, VW, Peugeot and Citroen).

With scrappage registrations still skewing the figures somewhat it is fascinating to observe Volkswagen at number 12 (up from 13 last month). Although they achieved a 22% increase on April last year of 2,637 units their April total units registered under scrappage amounted to 3,225 so May’s figures will make very interesting reading.

Following up are the final 4 manufacturers who all returned negative performances, Toyota, Vauxhall, Ford and Honda, with Honda in particular suffering a 28% decline on April 2009 and registering 1,623 fewer units on an already depressed market.

So that’s it, scrappage really is no more and May’s figures should not have many scrappage registrations left to skew the figures and will be eagerly awaited by all concerned.

POS	Manufacturer	April 2009	April 2010	Diff	%
1(3)		2208	5228	3020	137
2(-)		1303	2835	1532	118
3(1)		2183	4510	2327	107
4(2)		3368	6750	3382	100
5(10)		1633	2869	1236	76
6(7)		2032	3568	1536	76
7(9)		2548	4020	1472	58
8(6)		2433	3593	1160	48
9(20)		4960	6886	1926	39
10(5)		4194	5782	1588	38
11(15)		7111	8693	1582	22
12(13)		12188	14825	2637	22
13(11)		6760	8221	1461	22
14(12)		4567	5093	526	12
15(17)		5086	5227	141	3
16(8)		2692	2753	61	2
17(16)		6218	5701	(517)	(8)
18(19)		20665	18418	(2247)	(11)
19(14)		24579	19216	(5363)	(22)
20(18)		5712	4089	(1623)	(28)

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