Pendragon forecasts the UK’s new car and used car markets to remain in growth in 2015.

The UK’s largest car dealer said it still expects new car registrations in 2015 to end between 2.5 and 2.6 million units, up from 2.48 million in 2014, and it expects the overall trend towards a greater proportion of new vehicle sales being through the retail channel to continue in the medium term.

It notes a “stabilisation” in the retail market, however, comparing the 11.9% retail registration growth of Q1 2014 with the 1.1% rise in Q1 2015.

In the used car market, Experian data showed an increase of around 2.1% in 2014 and Pendragon said it expects the market to grow in 2015 by between 1% and 2%.

It added: “The aftersales market continues to be favourable for the nearly new vehicle car parc as a result of the new car market increases in the last three years.  These favourable conditions will flow into the four to six year old car parc in the coming years.”

The car dealer group expects the sub-three-year-old car parc to grow by 7.0% and the four-to-six-year-old parc to grow by 2.0% in 2015.