Twelve months ago, members of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) were bracing themselves for the worst. As vehicle registrations in the major markets of Germany, France, the UK, Spain and Italy collapsed, so too went all forecasts for just about every player. Yet as the most volatile year for car sales in recent memory ended, combined numbers for ACEA’s 30 markets* show a year-on-year dip of only 1.6%, thanks to national incentives schemes.
With a 0.7% rise in market share to 21.1% in 2009, Volkswagen Group remained easily the largest OEM in Europe, while Audi became the region’s number one premium brand for the first time. PSA Peugeot Citroën stayed in second place with sales mostly flat, followed by Ford of Europe (+2.0%), with Renault-Dacia (+3.9%) clawing back fourth position from GM Europe (-8.7%). This was mostly due to the popularity of the Clio in France as well as to the growing success of the Dacia-built Sandero across the region.
Toyota still cannot make the leap into the big league, its market share declining by 4.7% to 5.0% in 2009, compared to next placed Fiat’s 8.7%.
Indeed, Renault’s second brand was only 12,000 units shy of a quarter of a million sales in 2009 (+29%) and on current trends, should soon overtake Honda. With total registrations for the year reaching 1,335,766, Renault Group was 51,483 units ahead of next placed GM Europe, reversing a 119,785 deficit from 2008.
Renault was not the best-performing of the traditional name big-volume groups in 2009, however; that title goes to Fiat, with a year-on-year rise of 6.3% to 1,254,829 sales (up 74,267 vehicles) thanks to gains made by the Panda and Punto mostly in the German, UK and of course Italian markets. Add in the numbers for Chrysler Group, incidentally, and Fiat moves ahead of GM and lags Renault by only 27,000 units.
Last year was not a happy one for Toyota Motor Europe and with little in the way of new product, 2010 does not look any more promising. Toyota still cannot make the leap into the big league, its market share declining by 4.7% to 5.0% in 2009, compared to next placed Fiat’s 8.7%. At least it was able to finish the year ahead of BMW (4.9%) and Daimler (4.8%) thanks to their respective falls. Action to address its underperformance in the Golf segment, as well as what to do about Lexus (fewer than 21,000 sales in 2009, a 27% fall) is clearly needed.
Incentives programmes were far kinder to Nissan Europe, with the division seeing its December sales up 96% thanks to a strong performance in the UK market. For the year as a whole, Nissan enjoyed a gain of 27% but this has in itself created a perplexing problem. The Micra, currently enjoying a resurgence, is scheduled to go out of production in the coming months, to be replaced at the Sunderland plant by the Juke crossover.
Although ACEA does not do so, grouping Hyundai (341,837) and Kia (252,403) reveals an OEM that is now not only larger in Europe than Mercedes-Benz (593,088) and BMW (572,091) but is also rapidly closing on Toyota.
The standout success of 2009 was not Nissan, however. That title must go to Hyundai-Kia. Although ACEA does not do so, grouping Hyundai (341,837) and Kia (252,403) reveals an OEM that is now not only larger in Europe than Mercedes-Benz (593,088) and BMW (572,091) but is also rapidly closing on Toyota.
Twelve months ago, you would have been laughed at for suggesting that Toyota’s lead of 258,310 vehicles as at the end of 2008 would have been reduced to only 136,591 units in 2009, with the gap in December a mere 5,044 vehicles. Factor in the many new products due for launch by the Korean brands in 2010 and draw your own conclusions about what might be ahead.
*EU27 excluding Malta & Cyprus, and EFTA excluding Liechtenstein
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Automotive World Ltd.
