MG MOTOR UK REGISTRATIONS YEAR 2023
MG HS no.4 best-selling car out of all manufacturers December month.
MG4 no.2 best-selling BEV out of all 2023 year behind only Tesla Model 3.
MONTH DECEMBER 2023
MG registrations Dec 2023 6,765 (4.79% of market), Dec 2022 2,927 (2.28% of market), up 3,838 or by more than total sales for 2015!
MG were in 8th place for the month, beating Vauxhall, Hyundai and Kia, but not Mercedes or Nissan. Tesla’s “on” month (5,517) was only good enough for 10th position.
Company registrations were up to 2/3 (from normally just over half) in the month suggesting a lot of deals and pre-registrations. Private customers would traditionally want to wait for new year.
MG HS (3,362) was half MG’s sales.
Top 3 VW; B*W(!); Audi
YEAR 2023
As already predicted, MG beat Škoda to reach 11th place, and by over 11,000 registrations. Hyundai did make it to 10th place for the year but slipped behind both Mercedes (9th) and Nissan (8th). All three manufacturers are less than 10,000 ahead of MG so let’s expect MG in the top ten for its official 100th birthday year 2024! MG’s 30,000 sales increase for 2023 is double its total sales for 2019!
Tesla has had a mare of a year, although its Model Y is easily the best-selling BEV in the UK (35,899 in the year – MG4, second, only 21,715). Its sales have actually fallen from 54,622 to 49,571 and it has dropped from the 11th place which MG has now taken, to 15th behind Škoda, Peugeot and even Volvo! It is the top BEV marque but that restricts its sales to under 20% of the market.
When trying to remember all the marques of “German Leyland” and dithering about MAN, Scania, Lamborghini, Ducati and now semi-detached Bugatti, Cupra is the marque I forget. However, in 2023 its sales are up 78% to 25,658, only about 6,000 less than SEAT which is growing more slowly.
BYD has 1/3 of the Chinese BEV market all to itself and it is poised for action. From a standing start in Spring 2023 its year 2023 sales (1,158) have outstripped those of both GWM Ora (911) and smart (a fringe player - hardly even on the bench! - whose 2023 sales of 785 are 38% down on 2022). In the December month BYD beat Stellantis’s albatross brand Alfa Romeo as well as these and Maxus (MIFA 9 not selling well or, in December, at all). I predict BYD will beat all of these and also Polestar in 2024, though Polestar outsold BYD by ten times in 2023.
Top 3 VW; Ford; Audi.
BEV and NEV
From 2023 figures, BEV is 17% of the market with pure ICE at 44% (40% petrol, 4% diesel) and all hybrids at 39%. MG4 with 21,715 registrations is easily MG’s most successful BEV (7% of total 2023 sales) as neither MG5 nor MG ZS EV sold more than about 8,000.
The key to MG’s success is its range of petrol cars and HS PHEV in addition to the BEVs. HS was half December registrations. It is likely many of these were corporate. I would be surprised if MG sold much more than 50% of its total as BEVs despite being a top BEV manufacturerthough it is therefore far more progressive thanwith the market as a whole.
(I edited this - despite HS and ZS being huge successes, MG4 all by itself was 27% of UK registrations!)
This is promising for the MG3 replacement, targeting some 80% of the market. Tesla is stuck as a big fish in the small BEV pond, 17% of the market, even though this is set to get bigger.