Cars from the Far East dominate the latest list of the best selling cars in the world for 2018, while there are some surprise new entries to the chart.

The data which has been provided by JATO shows that car sales fell by 0.5 per cent in 2018, the first time there has been a drop since 2009.

The figures reveal a strong market and emerging brands from China are increasing their output, whilst traditional brands from Japan remain strong. JATO’s research covers the 54 key global markets and show that 86 million vehicles were sold in 2018, 30 million of which were SUVs, giving a further indication of the strength of the type, with a 36 per cent market share.

Chinese brand Baojun is one of the lesser well known names in the top 25, the company is joint owned by General Motors and despite sales dropping in its home market it still makes the list with a range of electric city cars, crossovers and MPVS, but only just in 25th spot.

Big American brands such as Buick and Chevrolet are well represented, however Ford, which certainly dominates in the UK and in the US, can only manage third spot. Ford had 5,329,290 registrations in 2018, a slump of 11 per cent on its previous year.

Volkswagen, which generally places second to Ford in the UK is second overall globally, with sales rising by just one per cent, chiefly due to the performance of the Polo. The only other German brand to make the top ten was Mercedes-Benz, in tenth, with 2,551,806 registrations.

The rest of the top ten is dominated by Japan and Korea, with Toyota way out ahead selling more than a million more cars than any other brand with 8,091,277 registrations. The Corolla, RAV4 and Camry all performing well in a range of markets across all continents.

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