MG's UK sales

June sales of 48 and July's of 36 are far below where sales need to be. If sales of say 160 a month are needed to sell 2,000 annually, if there are 40 dealers each needs to sell 4 a month.

I'm sure several dealers have sold more than one in July - if so, some can't have sold any and haven't even registered a demonstrator! In fact, I can say where at least seven registered MG6s are, or about 10% of total sales for two months!

What is going on, do you think?

I'd suggest too few dealers, little local promotion/signage by those dealers, a too small a car range, the lack of a diesel, not helped by it being summer (low point in car sales) and a recession.

A good car that doesn't appeal to enough buyers due to the lack of engine/transmission offerings

There are still a lot of people that think MG (Rover) ended in 2005 and have no idea about it's comeback/rebirth.




Or maybe British people just have no love for the marque these days ?

Perhaps MG might want to loan an MG6 to each of the members of this forum so we can get them out and about on the roads...I do about 18,000 miles a year..that's a fair bit of road presence!

What a good idea Richard, but seriously how can you expect many sales, when for instance, there is not one MG dealer on the west coast of Britain further north than Wigan. Is not now time to get firms like Arnold clark involved, that have lots of dealerships in prominent places.

adaveabbott wrote:What a good idea Richard, but seriously how can you expect many sales, when for instance, there is not one MG dealer on the west coast of Britain further north than Wigan. Is not now time to get firms like Arnold clark involved, that have lots of dealerships in prominent places.

Few big players are realistically going to sign up to a one car manufacturer after so many were burned by MGR. I would suggest MG get the 3 or 5 into showrooms as their main priority to increase footfall and encourage dealers to invest in their showrooms and promotional activity.

By all accounts both the 3 and 5 have been designed by the team at Longbridge..if MG want to take europe seriously as a market they need to increase their product portfolio PDQ....if they were designed here why is it taking so long???

so how can Guy Jones predict 2000 sales? it must be an achievable target if he mentioned it on the national news.

There is no dealer on the axis from London to Guildford. There is one in Epsom, but that's the sort of place I only go to if I am looking for taps...

We have to ask ourselves, what is the market for a fairly expensive to run, 1.8 petrol turbo C/D segment car in the UK in 2011?; how many can a diverse network of 40 or so small dealers who have only just got their new branding, sell with little financial incentives and to a market largely unaware that MG is back?
Check out the websites of MG dealers accross the country - some hardly mention the brand at all.

Given the above, 40 or 50 sales a month is pretty good.

The key will be the new registrations in September - the biggest month for private sales. If MG dealers fail to shift 100 cars accross the country in September then I agree we should start to worry!

Dorset Rocket wrote:The key will be the new registrations in September - the biggest month for private sales. If MG dealers fail to shift 100 cars accross the country in September then I agree we should start to worry!

is Guy's public target of 2000 unrealistically high?

I think Guy's figure of 2000 was for first years production rather than sales, but I may be wrong.
If it was production and IF by June 2012 there are 50 dealers, say with 4 unregistered cars each, plus 200 more in the supply chain/at the factory, then perhaps we are looking at 1600 forecast sales by June 2012 rather than 2000.
That means if the first 3 months (June/july Aug '11) is going to be about 180 sales, then if next 3 months (with September new reg boost)is about 400, then say 300 over the winter months and 600 next spring (hopefully boosted by the new dealers and the diesel engine) we are up to nearly 1500...OK I'm just playing with numbers, but I guess they must have a plan and hopefully they are not as worried about the low sales so far as we are..