Best Selling Cars – Matt's blog

Toyota Hilux

* See the Top 110 best-selling models by clicking on the title! Many thanks to Ldman *

After many attempts at guessing the list of best-selling cars in the UAE based on a couple of short trips there, I can finally share with you official sales figures thanks to data shared by Ldman! 21,248 vehicles were registered in the UAE last November and it is one of Toyota’s strongest countries in the world, with 5 models in the Top 5 and 7 in the Top 10 this month!

2012 Toyota Camry

Boosted by the new generation now in dealerships, the Toyota Hilux is in pole position with 1,216 sales and 5.7% share, ahead of the Toyota Camry, possibly also helped by the 2012 model, at 1,034 units and 4.9% just above the Toyota Prado with 1,029 sales and 4.8% share. The iconic Land Cruiser and Corolla follow at 4.5% and 4.2% respectively. A truck breaks the Toyota spell at #6: the Mitsubishi Fuso Canter (3.9%) but another Toyota is 7th: the Yaris hatchback (3.3%).

Nissan Patrol

The Land Cruiser’s only competitor, the Nissan Patrol, arrives in 8th position with 523 units and 2.5% while the Mitsubishi Pajero is very robust at #11. Notice also the Lexus LX at #21, the BMW 7 Series at #26, the Porsche Cayenne at #27, the Toyota FJ Cruiser at #28, the BMW X6 at #34 and the Audi A8 at #55.

Range Rover Evoque

Chevrolet Malibu

Further along the ranking, the new Renault Safrane is at #65, the Infiniti QX at #69, the Range Rover Evoque at #70 with 67 sales, the Chevrolet Malibu at #92, the Porsche Panamera at #102 and 45 units and the Ford Mustang at #107 with 41 sales.

Full November 2011 Top 110 Ranking Table below.

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Toyota Land Cruiser Wagon. Picture by Aljazi Al-Nasr. All rights reserved.

* See the Top 50 best-selling models by clicking on the title! Many thanks to Ldman *

We know the Toyota Land Cruiser is an icon in the Persian Gulf region. But nowhere else in the world is it more popular than in Oman! The Land Cruiser Wagon leads the Omani models ranking in November with an extravagant 13.3% market share thanks to 1,808 sales, followed by the Pick-up version at 11.2% and 1,526 units, while the Land Cruiser Prado ranks #4 at 1,112 sales and 8.2%.

Toyota Land Cruiser Pick-up

Add to this the 204 units or 1.5% share of the Lexus LX, an (even) more luxurious version of the Land Cruiser, #13 overall…and altogether the Land Cruiser family commands a huge 34.2% share of Omani car sales with 4,650 units sold in November in a total market of 13,598 sales…

Lexus LX

Yes, the Omani consumer does buy other cars, but the preference goes largely to Toyotas: the Hilux is #3 (8.5%), the Hiace #6 (4.2%) and the Corolla #7 (3.9%). The Nissan Sunny is the best-selling passenger car in 5th place with 592 sales and 4.4%, with the Kia Cerato (#8) and Rio (#9) also popular. Hyundai places the new gen Elantra at #10, the Santa Fe at #11 and the new gen Accent at #15.

Full November 2011 Top 50 Ranking Table below.

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BMW 7 Series

See the Top 50 best-selling models by clicking on the title! Many thanks to Ldman *

Qatari consumers bought 5,733 new vehicles in November and once again Toyota has a stranglehold over the market. The big Land Cruiser is the best-selling vehicle in the country with a comfortable margin at 636 sales and 11.1% market share, ahead of the Hilux at 459 units and 8%.

Hyundai places the Santa Fe in an excellent third position with 242 sales and 4.2%, just one unit above the Nissan D22 Pick-up. The Nissan Sunny ranks 5th at 203 units and 3.5% and the VW Jetta is doing better here than in any other countries in the region at #8 with 2.3%.

Hyundai Santa Fe

Now for the piece of trivia you will want to repeat at posh dinners: Qatar is the only country in the world where the BMW 7 Series is one of the Top 10 best-selling models! It ranks 9th this month with 128 sales and 2.2% market share… An outstanding performance for a model priced around US$ 100,000!

Nissan D22

Other interesting Qatari particularities include the GMC Sierra at #10, the Lexus LX at #22, the Toyota FJ Cruiser at #23, the Porsche Cayenne at #25 with just under 1% market share, the Infiniti FX at #34 and the Mercedes S-Class at #35.

Full November 2011 Top 50 Ranking Table below.

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Toyota Prado

* See the Top 50 best-selling models by clicking on the title! Many thanks to Ldman *

9,186 new vehicles were registered in Kuwait last month and there is one model that stands out from the crowd here: the Toyota Prado. It leads with 745 sales and 8.1% market share, way above the #2 the Toyota Hilux, at 437 units and 4.8%. In fact Toyota monopolises the podium with the Camry ranking third this month with 394 sales and 4.3%, ahead of the Nissan D22 Pick-up at #4.

Chevrolet Silverado

GMC Yukon

Compared to its neighbouring countries, Kuwait presents a clearer American influence in its models ranking: the Chevrolet Silverado reaches an excellent 5th position in November at 284 units and 3.1%, the Chevrolet Tahoe is at #8 with 2.3%, the Ford Crown Victoria at #9 and 2%, the GMC Sierra at #13, Dodge Nitro at #16, GMC Yukon at #22 and Chevrolet Traverse at #24. Notice also the Nissan Altima at #6 and the Hyundai Tucson at #10.

Full November 2011 Top 50 Ranking Table below.

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Toyota Land Cruiser. Picture by Mohammed AlAmmari

* See the Top 50 best-selling models by clicking on the title! Many thanks to Ldman *

And here is my Christmas present to you all! This is the first of 7 articles on all nations of the Persian Gulf (GCC) thanks to data shared by Ldman. For the first time ever on Best Selling Cars Blog I am able to share with you actual sales figures for the Top 50 or 100 best-selling models for all countries in the region!

Hyundai Accent

In Bahrain 2,882 new cars were registered in November and the Toyota Land Cruiser is a distant leader with 294 sales or 10.2% market share. It is followed by the new generation Hyundai Accent at 200 units and 6.9% and the Toyota Prado with 170 sales and 5.9%.

Lexus ES

Hyundai manages to place the Tucson in 4th place (4.6%) and the new gen Elantra in 10th (2.6%) while Toyota has 3 more models in the Top 10: the Corolla at #7, Hiace at #8 and Hilux at #9. The other two brands present in the Bahraini Top 10 are Nissan with the Altima at #5 and Kia with the Sportage at #6. Further down the ranking, notice the Lexus ES at #15, the Lexus LX at #17, the Nissan Juke at #21 and the Porsche Cayenne at #34.

Full November Top 50 Ranking Table below.

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From the heat of Sydney, Australia, I wish you all the best in this festive season, and wanted to thank you all for your amazing support during the last year! You have made this blog a place where car enthusiasts exchange their views and share all the available data about car sales, and I thank you very much for it!

I have much more in store for you in the next few days and weeks, so stay tuned!

Thanks to your continued support, BSCB has beaten records again in December! On December 7, you viewed 7,027 pages on this site, the first time the 7,000 page views barrier was broken. On average this month you are viewing around 5,500 pages per day. Compared to the 812 page views/day average from December 2010, a year ago, you can clearly see how fast BSCB’s readership is progressing!

But the biggest improvement has been on unique visitors: on December 15 you were 1,926 to visit the site, a new record that I’m sure will not last for too long. 15 of the overall Top 20 days for unique visitors since the creation of this site are December 2011 days! BSCB is going towards 40,000 uniques for this month, compared to just under 22,000 last August.

So thank you everyone, and keep visiting BSCB!

See below for more Google Analytics stats.

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The Ford Cortina sold 193,784 units in 1979, a volume record for the UK

* Click on the title for the Top 25 best-selling nameplates and Top 25 foreign nameplates! *

* Many thanks to Florian for making this post possible! *

Now that we have a lot more detail on car sales in the UK from 1965 up to now, I can share with you a ranking exclusive to Best Selling Cars Blog: the best-selling nameplates in the country, ranked by their volume record year. Since 1965, 15 nameplates have sold upwards of 100,000 annual units at least once, with only one foreign model among them: the Peugeot 206.

Peugeot 206

The Ford Cortina holds the record for the highest volume delivered in a single year in the UK with 193,784 units sold in 1979. The Ford Escort follows at 181,218 in 1989 and the Ford Sierra rounds up the podium at 175,911 also in 1989, making it the highest-selling model that never managed to be #1… The Austin Morris 1100, Ford Fiesta and Focus are the only other nameplates to have crossed the 150,000 annual sales mark.

Austin Metro

Vauxhall’s highest seller was the Cavalier with 138,357 units in 1990, while the Austin Metro peaked at 137,303 sales in 1983. Notice the Morris Marina at #11 thanks to 114,600 units sold in 1973 and the Ford Anglia at #18 with 84,589 sales in 1965. Note the strongest years of the legendary Austin Mini, launched in 1959, may not appear in this ranking that starts in 1965.

Peugeot 306

The Top 3 foreign models volume records were all delivered in 2002: the Peugeot 206 at a seemingly unbeatable 101,019 units, which earned it a record 4th place, the highest ranking ever reached by a foreign model in the UK, the Renault Clio at 86,336 sales and the VW Golf, the only other foreign model to have ever broken into the year-end UK Top 5, with 73,262 units. Notice the Peugeot 306 at #4, having broken the foreign model volume record 4 times between 95 and 98!

Nissan Micra

In fact, Peugeot places no less than 8 models in the Top 15 highest selling foreign nameplates: the 206 (#1), 306 (#4), 207 (#5), 307 (#8), 205 (#12), 405 (#13), 106 (#14) and 406 (#15). Note the BMW 3 Series at #7 with a peak of 65,489 units in 2003. The Nissan Micra holds the record for a Japanese model with 54,175 sales in 1989 but interestingly it never managed to break into the year-end Top 10, a feat that the Datsun Sunny (in 1977, 78, 82 and 83), Datsun Cherry (1981) and Nissan Qashqai (2010 and 11) have managed.

UK Top 25 best-selling nameplates and foreign nameplates below.

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The Ford Cortina was #1 in England for the first time in 1967

* 29 articles have been revised – click on the title for the direct links *

Thanks to data shared by Florian I can now give you much more detail on the UK market since 1985, with at least a Top 15 from 1985 onwards, a Top 30 from 1995 and a Top 100 for 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994 and 2004 up until now! This is very rare data folks, as it is traditionally very difficult to get anything beyond a Top 10 for the English car market… Plus from 2004 onwards every Monthly Top 10 is available, that’s 95 consecutive months!

The Ford Fiesta was #1 in the UK in 1990, 1991, from 1996 to 1998, 2009 and 2010.

And here’s an interesting stat for you: for the last 40 consecutive years, a Ford model has held the pole position in the UK! After the Austin 1100-1300 definitely relinquished the throne in 1971, it has always been a Ford atop English sales: the Cortina (#1 for 10 years), Escort (12 years), Fiesta (7 years) and Focus (10 consecutive years).

The Peugeot 205 was one of the best-selling foreign models in the UK from 1985 to 1993

Over the period just updated (1985-2010), the main event has been the increasing success of foreign models, with more and more each year breaking into the Top 20. In the 17 years between the 39,188 units sold by the Peugeot 205 in 1986 and the 101,019 sales of the Peugeot 206 in 2002, the foreign model annual volume record was beaten 11 times!

The Datsun Cherry ranked #8 in the UK in 1981

Interestingly, the foreign model charge was initially led by Datsun, which placed the Cherry at #8 in 1978, a foreign model ranking record that would only be beaten nearly 20 years later in 1997 by the Peugeot 306. The British models ranking used to be filled with plenty of mass English brands: in 1975 the Top 10 models featured no less than 7 of them: Ford, Mini, Morris, Austin, Vauxhall, Hillman and Leyland! How times have changed…

See the direct links to these 29 revised posts below.

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Wuling Sunshine

* See the Top 5 best-selling models by clicking on the title! *

Light Commercial Vehicle sales in China are shy again this month at -10% and 420,989 registrations, bringing the year-to-date total to 4,511,311 units, down 7%. Both Wuling models in the Top 5 totally ignore this trend and are up a huge 40% year-on-year. The Wuling Sunshine sells 65,522 units in November, making its year-to-date total 670,897 sales, now down just 5%.

As usual let’s compare these figures with the highest-selling vehicles in America and Europe. In November the Ford F-Series sold 54,543 units in the USA+Canada for a 605,012 units 2011 year-to-date total. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the VW Golf sold 37,059 units in the whole of Europe, and 449,882 year-to-date. It is an amazing achievement for the little-known Wuling Sunshine to beat all these scores.

In 2nd place this month the Wuling Rongguang/Xingwang is at 34,273 sales and climbs up to 2nd place in 2011 with 350,919 units, up 38% and just above the Foton Forland at 350,570 sales.

Previous month: China LCV October 2011: Wuling Sunshine above 60,000 units

Full November 2011 Top 5 Ranking Table below.

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Dacia Duster

* NOW UPDATED with the Year-to-date Top 299 best-selling models! Click on title to see, thanks STAC *

Experts had predicted the French market would fall by over 10% year-on-year in November. Not so. Once again, car sales in France impress with their hold at -8% and 179,038 registrations, bringing the year-to-date total to 2,016,412 units, down just 0.3%. The Renault Clio reinforces its leadership with 9,937 sales and 5.5% share, now at 118,135 units and 5.9% year-to-date vs. 94,485 and 4.7% for the Peugeot 207, #2 this month at only 4.2%. 2011 will end up being one of the Clio’s easiest cruises to pole position, with 8 months out of 11 at #1…

Citroen DS5

The Renault Megane is stable in 3rd place at 3.7% and now threatens the Citroen C3 for a spot on the 2011 podium with 72,688 sales vs. 73,956 for the Citroen, #6 this month. The Renault Twingo confirms it is back to its traditional levels thanks to its quirky facelift, #4 this month at 3.5%.

The performance of the month goes to the Dacia Duster: up 2 spots on October it breaks into the French monthly Top 5 for the very first time at #5 with 5,783 sales and 3.2%, which are ranking, volume and market share records for the model! Dacia has a stellar month due to the return to full availability of its entire range: the Sandero stays in 15th place but improves to 1.9% share, its best in 10 months, while the Logan is up 25 spots on October to rank #33 with 1,328 sales, its best position in 15 months. Notice also the very first unit of the Dacia Lodgy registered this month.

Peugeot 208

Other great performers this month include the Ford C-Max up to #21 at 2,543 units and 1.4%, the Nissan Micra up 14 ranks to #30 and 1,524 sales, the BMW X1 breaking into the Top 50 at #48, the Kia Rio up 16 spots to #63, the Range Rover Evoque up 16 ranks also to #79 and the Audi Q3 breaking into the French Top 100 for the first time at #88 with 393 units sold.

As far as French newcomers are concerned, November is also a rich month. The Citroen DS5 makes its very first appearance in the monthly Top 100 in 74th position with 524 sales and 0.3% share. In anticipation for its March 2012 launch, 184 dealership units of the all-new Peugeot 208 are delivered this month, placing Peugeot’s future best-seller at #123…

Previous post: France 14 to 21 November: Renault Twingo up to #2

Previous month: France October 2011: Renault Twingo and Koleos up

Full November 2011 Top 200 and Year-to-date 2011 Top 285 Ranking Tables below.

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