Pendragon expects car sales to race further ahead this year
CAR SELLER Pendragon said motorists are still splashing out on vehicles after breaking post-recession sales records last year, helping boost its earnings.
Chief executive Trevor Finn said the strong momentum going into 2014, with UK new car sales up 7.6 per cent on last year in January, shows few signs of slowing.
“There’s an optimism there but people don’t want to start cooing about it when we are so early in the year,” he told City A.M. “There’s still a lot of old cars out there.”
He said seven in ten customers are now buying cars on credit: “The current generation of owners think no more of it than buying an iPhone and trading it in after five years.”
In 2013, Pendragon’s new car sales rose 18 per cent, while used cars volumes were up seven per cent. Revenues rose six per cent to £3.8bn in the year and pre-tax profit increased 14 per cent to £38.9m.