2019 (Full Year) Britain: Best-Selling Car Brands in the UK

In 2019, Ford and Volkswagen remained the best-selling car brands in Britain but Mercedes-Benz and BMW moved ahead of Vauxhall.

In full-year 2019, Ford was the top-selling car marque in the UK but continued to lose market share. Volkswagen was again the second-largest car brand in Britain. Mercedes-Benz and BMW moved ahead of Vauxhall that had sales down by a tenth. The Ford Fiesta was again the favorite car of the Brits in 2019.

New passenger vehicle registrations in the UK decreased by 2.4% in 2019 to 2,311,140 cars – see British new car market overview 2019.

Latest British Car Sales Data: 2023: Market Overview, Brands, Models, Electric; 2022-2008.

Best-Selling Car Brands in Britain in 2019 (Full Year)

The 30 top-selling car marques in the UK in full-year 2019 were as follows according to the SMMT:

	MARQUE	Sales 2019	Sales 2018	% Change
	Total	2,311,140	2,367,147	-2.37
1	Ford	236,137	254,082	-7.06
2	Volkswagen	200,771	203,133	-1.16
3	Mercedes-Benz	171,823	172,238	-0.24
4	BMW	169,753	172,048	-1.33
5	Vauxhall	159,830	177,298	-9.85
6	Audi	138,924	143,739	-3.35
7	Toyota	105,192	101,922	3.21
8	Kia	97,323	95,764	1.63
9	Nissan	92,372	102,637	-10.00
10	Hyundai	83,284	89,925	-7.39
11	Peugeot	80,851	81,043	-0.24
12	Land Rover	76,546	77,906	-1.75
13	Skoda	75,053	74,724	0.44
14	SEAT	68,798	62,863	9.44
15	MINI	64,884	67,021	-3.19
16	Renault	59,132	62,168	-4.88
17	Volvo	56,208	50,319	11.70
18	Citroen	50,806	49,618	2.39
19	Honda	43,913	52,570	-16.47
20	Mazda	40,148	39,602	1.38
21	Jaguar	36,069	37,019	-2.57
22	Suzuki	35,065	38,519	-8.97
23	Dacia	30,951	24,169	28.06
24	Fiat	29,890	35,652	-16.16
25	Mitsubishi	16,199	21,156	-23.43
26	Lexus	15,713	12,405	26.67
27	Porsche	15,257	12,437	22.67
28	MG	13,075	9,049	44.49
29	Jeep	6,193	6,114	1.29
30	DS	4,299	5,074	-15.27
	Source: SMMT

Top 10 Best-Selling Car Brands in the UK in 2019

In 2019, Ford remained the largest car brand in Britain despite selling 7% fewer cars than in 2018 and losing another half percent market share. Ford’s share of the British new car market was only 10.22% in 2019. Total Ford sales in Britain in 2019 were around 80,000 fewer cars than in 2016.

Volkswagen outperformed the broader market and gained some market share despite selling fewer cars in Britain in 2019 than a year ago.

Vauxhall sales in Britain in 2019 were down by nearly a tenth resulting in the venerable brand dropping from third a year ago to only fifth. Vauxhall should benefit from the launch of a new Corsa model in early 2020.

Both Mercedes-Benz and BMW moved up one rank position each with lower sales but above market average. Mercedes-Benz was recently named as the most trusted car brand in Britain with the A-Class being the fifth most-popular car model in the UK in 2019.

Audi maintained sixth place despite weaker sales. Toyota and Kia each moved up one rank position as the only two top-ten brands in the UK with higher volume sales in 2019.

Nissan slipped two rank positions with sales down by a tenth – the worst-performing top-ten car brand in Britain in 2019. Among the top-20 brands, only Honda performed worse.

Hyundai was again the tenth-largest car brand in the UK despite sales sharply down in 2019.

DS entered the top-30 list, despite weaker sales, at the expense of Smart that had sales nearly halved in Britain in 2019. In 2020, Smart is changing into an electric-only car brand.

See 2019 Britain: New Car Market Overview for more on the British new car market in 2019. The Ford Fiesta was again the top-selling car in Britain in 2019. British automotive production in 2019 was lower – cars -14%, commercial vehicle -8% and engines -7%.