Ford's private-sales surge helps boost UK market

Ford was the UK's top-selling brand for the second month in a row in October. The U.S. automaker's 95 percent increase in volume to 13,295 units was underpinned by a 156 percent gain in sales to private customers during the month.

Ford's success helped the overall market rise 26 percent to 134,344 vehicles last month. It was the UK market's third increase in a row.

The models leading Ford's sales surge were the Fiesta small hatchback and Puma small SUV, with registrations up 684 percent and 423 percent, respectively.

"It seems that the brand recently focused on the output of affordable volume cars in the face of tightening budgets of private customers in the UK," Dataforce Senior Automotive Analyst Benjamin Kibies said.

He also believe Ford is leaning toward sales of smaller, lighter cars to help it reach its European CO2 emissions target.

"Ford managed to meet its individual CO2 target for 2022 of 120 g/km in October," he said.

It was the first time the brand's emissions were at that level since March after averaging 126 g/km in the third quarter, according to Kibies.

Another big winner in the UK last month was BMW. Despite a drop in overall market share for full-electric models to 14.8 percent from 15.2 percent last month, BMW quadrupled its EV volume, led by the i4 and iX, which are mainly aimed at fleet customers looking to move away from traditional powertrains.