Inchcape has reported a year-on-year increase in revenues in its UK and European businesses.

Turnover was up 6.1%, the dealer group said, in a report on its trading period from January 1 to April 30.

Reporting on all its multinational operations, Inchcape said total group revenue was £2.91 billion in the period, up 17.9%, with growth in the UK despite the “continuation of new car margin pressures”.

“Our performance in the first four months of 2017 is consistent with our expectation for growth across the majority of our markets,” said Stefan Bomhard, group chief executive.

“We have a strongly cash generative business model which enables us to drive organic and inorganic growth within our disciplined capital allocation framework. I believe the recent business development activity demonstrates the exciting opportunity for value-enhancing consolidation in our highly fragmented industry.

“With over three quarters of profits denominated in currencies other than Sterling, our reported actual currency performance continues to benefit from Sterling’s weakness and acts as an offset to the transactional currency headwind in Australia.”

Inchcape also announced it had become the exclusive distributor of BMW Group vehicles in Estonia in the acquisition of distribution operations from United Motors AS.