LONDON -- New-car registrations in Britain fell by 44 percent in March as the coronavirus crisis hit the economy and forced many would-be buyers to stay at home, data from the SMMT industry body showed on Monday.
Sales totaled 254,684 units, making it the weakest March -- typically one of the top two selling months of the year -- since 1999 when bi-annual plate changes were introduced.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a shutdown of much of the economy last month as his government sought to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
March accounted for nearly 20 percent of total registrations in 2019 as it is one of two annual occasions when a new license plate series is issued.
Car sales in Britain have been falling since hitting a record high in 2016. The SMMT's latest forecast, published in January, predicted a drop in full-year demand of just over 2.5 percent to 2.25 million cars.
The fall mirrored losses in Europe's other major markets last month. Registrations in Germany, the region's No. 1 market, slumped by 38 percent, while in France, sales plummeted 72 percent as dealerships closed their doors on government order in the middle of the month to combat the spread of the pandemic.
In Italy, the European country that has been hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak, sales dropped 85 percent as the market came to a halt to counter the pandemic.
Demand in Spain, which has also been hit hard by the outbreak, fell 69 percent on the effects of a stringent government-imposed lockdown.
