Spain April 2015: Seat Leon takes clear advantage, Dacia Sandero #3

The Seat Leon is the best-selling nameplate at home in April.

* See the Top 47 All-brands and Top 280 All-models by clicking on the title *

After the extravagant +41% increase from last month, the Spanish new car market falls back to a more realistic 4% year-on-year gain in April at 83,336 registrations, as the latest phase of government scrappage scheme ended at the start of April. However this is still the 20th consecutive month of year-on-year gains in Spain, bringing the year-to-date total to 351,949 deliveries, up 25% on 2014. Despite sales down 11% on April 2014, Seat reclaims the brands pole position off Volkswagen both this month (7.599 sales) and year-to-date (30.938) while Opel leaps up to 2nd spot overall in April (7.027) and both Renault (+40%) and Peugeot (+6%) outperform the market inside the Top 5. Notice also Dacia up 39% to a fantastic 7th place overall, Toyota up 21%, Kia up 26%, Mercedes up 28%, BMW up 24%, Mazda up 47% and Mitsubishi up 103%.

The Dacia Sandero ranks third overall in April in Spain.

In the models ranking, the Seat Leon overtakes its smaller sibling the Ibiza to lead overall for the 4th time in the past 6 months with 3.424 sales and 4.1% share vs. 2.871 and 3.4% for the Ibiza. This is however not enough to edge into the year-to-date pole position: the Leon now trails the Ibiza by just 217 units (12.906 vs. 13.123), and 2015 is another very tight year in the race for the annual pole position, after the Leon managed to finish 2014 ahead for the first time in the nameplate’s history at 27.714 sales, only 142 units above the Ibiza. The other great performer this month in Spain is the Dacia Sandero, up 10 spots on March to land on the podium at #3, its best Spanish ranking since last September when it was #1 overall.

The Peugeot 2008 breaks into the Spanish Top 10 for the first time in April.

The Renault Clio also delivers a good month in 4th place vs. #9 year-to-date, while the Peugeot 2008 breaks into the Spanish Top 10 for the very first time at #9 with 1.628 sales and 2% share, establishing ranking, volume and share records in Spain and outselling the 208 (#11 and 1.559 sales) for the first time to become the brand’s best-seller – also for the first time. A month of firsts for the 2008! Notice also the VW Passat up 24 ranks to #27, the Audi Q3 up 10 to #35 vs. #52 year-to-date and the Smart Forfour up 32 to #60.

Previous month: Spain March 2015: Nissan Qashqai and Ford Focus up

One year ago: Spain April 2014: Seat Ibiza triumphs in market up 29%

Full April 2015 Top 47 All-brands and Top 280 All-models below.