World Full Year 2012: Discover the Top 50 Compact cars!

Nissan Tiida

* See the Top 50 best-selling Compact cars by clicking on the title! *

The original World Full Year 2012 Top 500 is here.

The most popular Compact cars in the world in 2012 are actually the most popular cars in the world, period. The Toyota Corolla, Ford Focus and Hyundai Elantra lead their category as well as overall sales this year with huge figures. The Corolla (sedan only) clocks up 1,097,132 sales, the Focus is at 1,036,683 units and the Elantra at 829,192, keeping in mind that all 3 models have different generations on sale simultaneously: 3 gens for the Corolla, 2 for the Focus and 3 for the Elantra. The Chevrolet Cruze follows at 784,014 sales and only relies on one generation.

Buick Excelle XT

The we find the Nissan Tiida/Versa/Sunny, the VW Golf, Honda Civic and Opel Astra which includes its twin models sold in China (Buick Excelle XT and GT) and the US (Buick Verano – sedan only). The name Jetta (or Bora as it was called previously in some markets) is used for very different cars nowadays that don’t have much in common anymore so I have split the figures in 3: the most recent 3 generations are all added up into the Jetta/Sagitar/Clasico figure at #9 with 552,937 units, the antediluvian 2nd generation 1984 Jetta restyled and about to be replaced in China ranks 18th and the Chinese Bora, now its own model, ranks 21str. Confusing, I know, and you also have to add the similar-looking VW Lavida at #19.

Toyota Prius

Excellent hold of the Toyota Prius at #10 and 389,932 sales, of the Kia Forte/Cerato/K3 at #12 and Nissan Sentra/Sylphy/Tsuru at #14. Further down, notice the BMW 1 Series at #20 and 226,829 units, BYD F3 at #24 and Hyundai i30 at #22 with 199,725 sales on top of the 829,192 Elantra sold, which means if Hyundai had a consistent naming policy (the current gen Elantra is in effect a booted i30), it could jumped up much closer to the overall worldwide models pole position with 1.03 million units…

The original World Full Year 2012 Top 500 is here.

Full Year 2012 Top 50 Compact cars Ranking Table below.