Which brands and models sold the most in April? The market returns with positive figures

Today is the first working day of May in much of our country, and we already have the passenger car sales figures in Spain for the month of April just ended.

After the slight setback in this area during March, which was mainly caused by the smaller number of working days due to the Easter holiday that was celebrated in April last year, sales are once again showing positive figures compared with the same month of the previous year.

In April, 100,821 cars were registered, 21.2 % more than in April 2015 but, as we have said, in 2015 Easter was celebrated in April, so this does not reflect “real” growth figures, so to speak.

The effect of Easter can be eliminated by adding the sales for March and April of 2015 and those of the same months of 2016 to make a real comparison. In this way, we see that in the last two months of 2016 (March and April) the number of passenger cars registered rose to 211,792, which represents an increase of 8.6 %.

By channel, the private buyer achieved a sales increase of 8.9 % for March-April combined compared with the same months of 2015. Meanwhile, the best result was achieved by the corporate channel with 14.7 % and 55,548 units. The channel with the lowest growth in this March-April count was rental companies, with 2.4 % and 53,420 registered cars.

In the total year-to-date, that is, the four months since the start of 2016, the total number of passenger cars sold was 385,775. This represents a notable growth of 10.3 % compared with the same period last year and the best first-four-month result since 2008.

If we focus the results on the best-selling brands and models in Spain, the data show that the brand with the highest sales in Spain in April was Volkswagen with more than 9,000 cars registered. It was followed by Opel and Peugeot with 7,700 and 7,400 respectively. So far this year, the order on the brand podium is different, with Opel in the lead, followed by Volkswagen and Peugeot, with approximately 32,700, 31,500 and 28,800 units respectively.

As for models, the best-seller in April was again the Citroën C4, with 3,560 registrations. It was closely followed by the Seat Ibiza and León models with 3,328 and 3,214 sales. Year to date, the C4 is also the leader with 13,348 sales, followed by the Seat León and Ibiza with 12,962 and 11,448 units.

Finally, the majority of cars sold are still diesel-engined, representing 57.8 %. Petrol engines account for 39.7 %, and the remaining 2.5 % corresponds to hybrid and electric models.

Source | ANFAC