True fleet registrations in the UK continued to decline last month, latest figures from Dataforce show.

True fleet registrations slid by 4.5% for the second month in a row in June

The sector saw a downturn of 4.5% in June – the same as the previous month – with the private market down 7.9% and special channels down 0.3%. Overall the total market finished with 243,000 registrations, equating to a 4.8% downturn in the growth stakes.

Within the manufacturer league table, VW saw growth of 40.7% and managed to claim the True Fleet top spot for its first time ever since Dataforce UK recordings started in January 2004, marking the first time since September 2006 that neither Ford (second) or Opel/Vauxhall (fifth) held the number one spot.

BMW (third) was the next German brand to capitalise, jumping two places followed by Mercedes (fourth) which kept the same spot as last year.

Nissan (sixth), Audi (seventh) and Toyota (eighth) all retained their positions with Peugeot (ninth) gaining one spot, while Hyundai (tenth) gained three and the second highest growth rate inside the top 10 of 39.5%.

Outside the top 10, SEAT saw 81.7% growth, with the volume spread across Leon, Ateca and Alhambra with Leon taking the top spot for the brand.

Looking at special channels, Dataforce noted that the rental channel is a domain where both Vauxhall/Opel (#1) and Ford (#2) dominate, with the two OEMs accounting for 44.5% of all registrations in June. In contrast, third-placed Fiat took just a 6.3% slice of the Rental channel, followed by Hyundai (#4) with 6.1% and VW (#5) with 6.0%. Interestingly only 99 registrations separated third to fifth.