Spain November 2016: Renault Mégane soars to pole position

The Renault Mégane is the best-selling vehicle in Spain in November.

* See the Top 47 All-brands and Top 282 All-models by clicking on the title *

The Spanish new car market returns to double-digit growth rates in November at +13% to 93.066 registrations, the largest October score since 2007 (125.227), lifting the year-to-date gain to +10.9% and 1.056.159 units, the highest 10 month-result since 2008 (1.089.112). Yet a phenomenon now widespread across Europe prevents analysts such as myself to jump for joy too high: most of the October year-on-year increase is due to artificial channels – read easily manipulated with self-registrations and much less profitable – such as company sales up 29% to 30.100 and sales to rental companies up a whopping 43% to 7.016. Private sales only gain 3% on October 2015 to 55.950 units and represent 60.1% of the market vs. 65.8% a year ago. The year-to-date situation is more favourable to private sales: up 7% but down from 55.8% to 53.8% share while company sales are up 15.9% to 27.6% share vs. 26.4% and rentals are up 15.8% to 18.6% share vs. 17.8% a year ago.

The Audi Q2 has already broken into the Spanish Top 100.

In the brands ranking, Renault surges 42% to take the top spot for the second consecutive month at 8.323 sales and 8.9% share, while Volkswagen benefits from a low base last year when its October sales were severely affected by the emission scandal to gain 21% to 7.112 and 7.6%. Opel gains a very shy 1% to #3 with 6.630 but stays in the year-to-date lead at 83.250 sales (+16%) above Volkswagen at 81.480 (+0.3%) and Renault at 80.415 (+14%). Other great performers near the top of the ranking include Seat (+37%), Hyundai (+20%), BMW (+67%), Audi (+26%), Fiat (+43%) and Mini (+49%). Reversely, Peugeot (-2%), Ford (-3%), Citroen (-5%), Kia (-12%) and Dacia (-15%) lose ground. Among smaller brands, notice Abarth (+102%), Jaguar (+109%), Maserati (+180%) and Infiniti (+359%).

The Mégane is benefiting from leasing promotions up to the end of the year in Spain. 

Model-wise, the Renault Mégane simply doubles its sales year-on-year thanks to the new generation and a special leasing offer (see picture at top of article), leading it to take the overall Spanish pole position for the first time since October 2014. The Seat Leon (+15%) is knocked down to 2nd place but remains by far the top seller so far this year at 32.188 units (+7%) ahead of the Seat Ibiza at 30.046 (+4%), staying at #3 this month. Below, the Renault Clio (+23%) and VW Polo (+45%) impress, at #8 the Hyundai Tucson breaks into the Top 10 for the third time in the past 8 months after April (#10) and August (#5) and the Opel Mokka is boosted by its facelift up 58% to #10, the brand’s best-seller above the Astra (#11) and Corsa (#12).

The Toyota C-HR makes its first appearance inside the Spanish sales charts. 

The Seat Ateca leads recent launches (<12 months) once again but drops four spots on October to #21 while the new generation Peugeot 3008 shoots up 39 ranks on last month to #29 with 1% share. The next best things are the Ford Ka+ at #54 (+17), the Fiat Tipo at #69 (-11) and the Audi Q2 breaking into the Top 100 for its first full month of sales at #95 (+88). The one newcomer of the month is the Toyota C-HR landing directly at #108 with 217 sales – a score that should improve drastically over the coming months.

Previous month: Spain October 2016: Seat Leon leads, Ateca breaks into Top 20

One year ago: Spain November 2015: Dacia Sandero doubles sales to #1

Full November 2016 Top 47 All-brands and Top 282 All-models below.