After a difficult 2012, the brand now has a new city car, Mirage, and SUV, Outlander, on the market.

Renault and Mazda continue to struggle in the middle market with 11.83% and 11.31% drops in registrations respectively for March.

Renault is still rebuilding its model base, but even the introduction of the new Clio couldn’t help it to post growth in the plate change month a full year after it rationalised its UK model range.

Mazda hopes new products combined with more flexibility around dealer bonus structures will help it to recover ground in 2013 and beyond (read AM’s analysis in last month’s print issue).

Its D-segment Mazda6 is fresh in the market, but has already been hit by a safety recall.

Alfa Romeo is also still struggling with a small product line up, resulting in a 37.4% drop in March registrations to 964 units.

End of quarter

Looking at the results for the end of the first quarter, Ford continues to be under strain and has lost 0.7 percentage points (ppts) of market share year-on-year.

The brands putting on the pressure include Vauxhall, which is 1.2ppts up on Q1 2012, Nissan, Honda and Suzuki, which each gained 0.3ppts share, and Citroën, which gained 0.2ppts.

Among the prestige brands, Mercedes-Benz has gained 0.3ppts this quarter and Jaguar has added 0.1ppts, while Audi has held fairly flat and BMW’s share has slipped by 0.1ppts.

Land Rover continues to strengthen, with its market share increasing 0.3ppts to 3.1%.