In August, the Swiss passenger car market failed to further reduce the gap to the previous year’s level. On the contrary, almost 16,100 newly registered passenger cars represented a fall of a whopping 17.8%. This means that hopes of working closer to the previous year’s level in small steps were not fulfilled. Registrations of light commercial vehicles up to 3.5t also slipped deeper into the red again, falling by 11.1%.
Swiss passenger car market in August 2020
For the eighth consecutive month, the Swiss passenger car market continued its negative trend and once again remained below the level of last year’s corresponding month. Within this framework, private market registrations fell by 17.2%, while commercial registrations slipped even further into the red with a drop of 18.4%. Unfortunately, the trend toward the improvement of losses seen during lockdown has come to an end in August.
A closer look at the commercial detail channels shows that company registrations in the True Fleet Market (- 10.9%) were also down again. Nevertheless, the losses in the company car segment were still comparatively moderate. The registrations for Dealer/Importer fell by 24.6% in the same period and those of car rental companies by as much as 33.0%.
True Fleet Market: Peugeot and Tesla more than doubled their fleet registrations
The negative development of the company car segment was also reflected at brand level. Only one third of the top 15 importer brands recorded growth compared to the same month last year. Following the successful performance in July, Peugeot (+ 120.5%) was once again high on the list of Swiss fleet managers in August. Tesla also succeeded in more than doubling its fleet registrations compared to the same month last year (+ 111.5%). In addition, Volvo (+ 32.3%), Citroen (+ 6.9%) and Porsche
(+ 1.8%) attracted attention.
At the model level, the image was almost back-to-front. In August, two thirds of the top 15 fleet models recorded year-on-year growth. The Tesla Model 3 (+ 363.6%), the Peugeot 308 (+ 242.9%) and the Renault Clio (+ 200.0%) led the way.
Market development of light commercial vehicles up to 3.5t
The market for light commercial vehicles up to 3.5t also suffered a setback in August, although the private market in particular developed extremely positively (+ 18,4%). The main reason for this were commercial registrations, which account for much of the registration volume for this type of vehicle and which fell by 16.4% compared with the same month last year. Overall, the figure at the end of August was therefore down 11.1%.
At brand level, Ford was able to build on the strong performance of the previous months and was once again the big winner among the top 10 importer brands in the True Fleet market (+ 50.8%). Citroen
(+ 23.3%), Iveco (+ 19.4%), Opel (+ 8.2%) and Peugeot (+ 4.6%) also developed positively in August. Within this ranking, Ford is the only importer brand to have achieved overall growth in the eight months of the year (+ 5.5%) compared with the same period of the previous year.
The Mercedes Sprinter (+ 29.3%) was the most registered vehicle in August, ahead of the VW Caddy (+ 11.4%) and the Ford Transit Custom (+ 72.4%). The latter model, in particular, alongside the Ford Transit (+ 148.4 %) was one of the main reasons for Ford’s good monthly figures.
