Colombia Full Year 2015: Chevrolet Sail #1, Renault gains 2 points share.

January 31, 2016
Matt Gasnier

The Chevrolet Sail is the best-seller in Colombia for the third year running.

* Now updated with the Top 50 brands and Top 60 models – click on title to see *

After hitting an all-time record in 2014, the Colombian new vehicle market is hit full frontal in 2015 at -14% to 281.885 registrations, despite a first quarter stable year-on-year. Sales were down 29% in October, 18% in November and 27% in December, indicating 2016 could see another sharp decline. Except taxis with stable sales at 15.191, all segments are affected by the decline, but pickups (-27%), LCVs (-27%) and SUV (-17%) suffer the most, while passenger cars are down 10%. Chevrolet remains the most popular carmaker in the country despite falling harder than the market at -19% to 23.7% market share and is followed like in 2014 by Renault down just 4% to improve its share by two percentage points on 2014 to 17.3%.

Mazda3 sales in Colombia is up 3-fold on a year ago thanks to the new model.

Kia rounds up the podium like last year at 9.9% share (-13%). Nissan (-6%) and Hyundai (-15%) overtake Ford (-25%) to rank 6th and 7th respectively and Toyota tumbles down 37%. Mazda goes completely against the grain with a very impressive 39% increase to 15.667 sales, with the Mazda3 the total hero of the year in the models ranking: sales of the compact nameplate are up 3-fold to shoot up from #34 a year ago to #8 in 2015. Suzuki (+8%), Hino (+9%) and Subaru (+36%) are the only other manufacturers gaining ground in the Top 30. Chery is once again the best-selling Chinese brand in Colombia but drops 37% to 3.160 sales ahead of Foton at 2.573 (-17%), JAC at 2.223 (-34%) and Dongfeng at 1.908 (-32%).

The Renault Sandero is #2 in Colombia like in 2015, improving its market share to 5.8%.

Model-wise, the Chevrolet Sail posts a third consecutive year atop the charts, losing less ground than the market at -12% to with 18.031 units sold and Renault monopolises the remaining spots in the Top 4 with all its nameplates improving their market share compared to a year ago thanks to minimal losses: the Sandero (incl. Stepway) is down 1% at #2, the Duster down 3% at #3 and the Logan stable at #4. The Chevrolet Spark GT (-25%), Tracker (-16%) and Spark (+6%) follow. Other great performers this year include the Nissan March (+34%), Kia New Sportage (+86%), Hyundai Super Pony – a bare bones version of the i25/Accent dedicated to taxi use (+280%) and the Mazda CX-5 (+42%). The Nissan Doble Cabina is the best-selling newcomer at #42 and the Chery Tiggo the best-selling Chinese at #47 – however both the Chevrolet Sail (#1) and N300 (#26) are imported from China.

Hyundai Super Pony Taxi. Picture courtesy carroya.com