Mitsubishi, SEAT and Jaguar are all celebrating after significant growth in the three brands.

SEAT saw a 19 per cent increase in the number of cars sold in the UK from January to July (25,681), in comparison to the same period last year (21,574).

Meanwhile, Jaguar is spraying the summer champagne all over its offices after it was revealed 9,813 of its new cars have been sold this year, in comparison 7,999 in the same period in 2012. That represents growth of nearly 23 per cent.

But of the dozens of manufacturers competing in this challenging market, Mitsubishi is proving to be more popular than ever before, selling 5,431 cars from January until July, in comparison to 3,868 in the same period last year – growth of nearly 41 per cent.

Lance Bradley, Managing Director of Mitsubishi Motors in the UK, said: “So far 2013 has been an exceptionally good year for us. We are naturally delighted that so many people have chosen Mitsubishi as their next vehicle.”

The new cars in the range, Mirage (top) and Outlander (above), have played their part in this sales increase.

“Strong business and consumer confidence in July saw the new car market continue to rise, posting double-digit growth in the month,” explained Mike Baunton, SMMT Interim Chief Executive. “Now we have evidence of consistent growth, we have raised our forecast for 2013 new car registrations to 2.216 million units, an increase of over eight per cent on last year.

“Recently, we’ve seen a range of economic indicators point to improving conditions and our raised sales forecast emphasises how positively we view the rest of 2013.”

Strong performance across the private, fleet and business market sectors saw the 17th successive monthly rise in July, growing 12.7 per cent to 162,228 units.

Registrations of alternatively-fuelled vehicles grew 17.0 per cent in the month to 2,432 and hit 17,859 units for the January to July period.

Meanwhile, plug-in car registrations have risen 70.7 per cent over the first seven months of 2013, to 1,885 units.