In light of the full implementation of WLTP as of September 1st, 2018 along with the homologation difficulties of several OEMs and anticipated registrations over the recent months, the only question was to what extent will the slump in September registrations be? In Spain, all market channels tumbled by a combined – 17.1% with the Total Market finishing at 73,000 passenger car registrations. All market segments suffered double-digit losses with the Private Market taking the hardest hit of – 18.1%. Also, the True Fleet Market’s streak of 55 (!) months of consecutive growth ended rather harshly in September (- 15.4%) while Special Channels were also down by 16.1%.
Brand performance
Just like the overall market segment performance, WLTP further influenced the True Fleet brand ranking with the majority of OEMs facing notable volume changes compared to September last year. Peugeot in 1st secured the top position eking out 1.4% over September 2017. The podium was completed by Volkswagen in 2nd and BMW in 3rd both gaining one rank. For Volkswagen this was rather notable since they suffered a loss of 7.5%.
SEAT (4th) achieved the highest monthly growth rate among the top 10 marques (+ 28.4%) and made a huge leap of 7 positions thanks mainly to the Leon, Ateca and Arona. Another big jump came from Toyota (5th) climbing up the ladder 5 places (+ 18.7%). Several models from the Japanese manufacturer had a very strong month, like the Prius Plus, C-HR, Yaris and the Auris Touring Sports.
Formerly ranked 2nd, Renault dropped down to 6th position, followed by Mercedes and Opel. The manufacturer from Rüsselsheim was the third top 10 brand with robust double-digit growth over September (+ 21.2%) with the biggest increases from the Grandland X and Crossland X. Citroën and Ford rounded out the top 10 with both OEMs facing drops in registrations.
Vehicle Segments
In September, even the booming SUVs could not resist the market disturbance, nonetheless its loss of – 0.8% was limited when compared to other vehicle segments like the Middle-Class (- 46.7%) or Compact Cars (- 28.7%). The only exemption came from the Small Car segment, which achieved a small surplus of 1.2% over September. Although there were also some significant volume losses, registrations of some models increased significantly. The VW Polo stood out most notably (+ 318.5%) while the Mini One/Cooper showed a stellar performance as well, almost doubling its prior year’s September volume (+ 93.1%). Three other models also finished positively over this difficult month inside Small Car’s top 10: the Opel Corsa, Dacia Sandero and Toyota Yaris.