Registrations of new light commercial vehicles fell by 0.2% in July to 24,506 units, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Trader. Effectively that means no change from this time last year.

Looking at the year to date, registrations have risen by 2.6% to 216,472 so far in 2016. Registrations have slowed since their record performance during the first half of the year but remain at a post-recession high, as this graph shows:

LCV registrations July 2010 to date (courtesy of SMMT)

Discussing the figures, Mike Hawes, Chief Executive, SMMT, said:

“After a record performance in the first half of the year, it was inevitable that growth would start to level off over the summer. Maintaining business confidence for LCV operators will be critical to this sector’s future performance.”

July’s slight decline was fairly evenly spread across the market, with only the sub-2.0t van segment and pickups seeing any gains. Heavy vans (2.5-3.5t) remain the biggest volume sellers, accounting for 3 out of every five vans sold last month.

Best sellers

July’s best sellers table looked remarkably familiar. Ford topped the list with 7,428 units registered. That’s more than double second-placed Volkswagen, which clearly isn’t suffering too heavily from the diesel emissions scandal.

Here’s the full list of best-selling brands for July and for the year-to-date. Perhaps the only surprise to me is that Fiat is lagging so far behind its PSA stablemates Citroen and Peugeot. Almost all of these firms’ vans are the same, simply rebadged and sometimes with different engines.

The best selling van manufacturers in July and 2016 to date (courtesy of SMMT)