Sales hold up at County Durham car dealers

Jun 22 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

A CAR dealer has boosted profits and held turnover around the same £38.6m as last year despite the slump in the trade nationwide.

Holiways, of Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, which also has outlets in Hartlepool, Durham, and Bishop Auckland, saw pre-tax profits for the year to last April rise 46% from £217,000 to £317,000.

This comes during a period in which new car sales nationally plummeted by as much as 50% in some months late last year.

Figures released earlier this week by SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders) for the first quarter of 2009 show sales of new cars fell 29.7% and used car sales fell 4.3% compared with the same period last year.

Holiways recorded sales of £38.5m in the year to April 2009 compared with £38.6m in the year to April 2008.

The company said: “In what has been a difficult financial year, the company has managed to sustain its position as a leading Ford group in the North East.

“As the economic downturn started affecting the business, pressure in the industry intensified and the company had to take positive steps to combat it. The key factors were that the company felt it had to be bold, flexible and ahead of the market, and in doing so it was heavily reliant upon leadership, staff and customer base.

“Essential to the company’s performance are vehicle sales and it was yet again pleasing to achieve new sales in excess of manufacturer’s objectives, despite falling markets.

“Also the after-sales departments achieved satisfactory results and managed to outperform the previous year’s figures, again contributing well to overall profits.”

An SMMT spokesman said: “In the last year there has been a marked decline in new car sales and any business that can report good success like this is doing extremely well.”

Holiways’ turnover for 2008 had increased by 19%, partly due to revenue achieved by acquiring a fourth site, in Bishop Auckland, in November 2007.