Sweden Full Year 2013: Volvo V40 lands in 5th place – lukewarm

Volvo V40

* See the Top 295 All-models and Top 34 All-brands by clicking on the title! *

The Swedish new car market is down 4% in 2013 to 269,363 registrations, the weakest annual result since 2009 which saw only 213,408 new cars changing hands in the country. And BIL Sweden only predicts a very shy improvement of 2% to 274,000 sales for 2014… In pole position we have a familiar face: thanks to 20,252 sales and 7.5% (-7%), the Volvo V70 tops Swedish sales charts for the 17th year in a row (since 1997), the longest reign of any nameplate in the history of automobile in Sweden! It is followed like in 2012 by the VW Passat (-12%), Volvo S/V60 (-1%) and VW Golf (stable). The Volvo V40 invites itself inside the Top 5 for its first full year of sales at #5 with 9,133 units and 3.4% but it seems to have plateaued during the year and has not managed to take the advantage over the VW Golf, potentially because the Golf does have a ‘true’ station wagon in its range, Swedish consumers remaining extremely fond of this format (the V70 and V60 are full station wagons).

The Toyota Auris ranks inside the Top 10 for the first time in 2013.

Even though it remains in 6th place like last year, the Volvo XC60 has improved greatly in 2013, up 34% to a best-ever 8,591 sales and 3.2%, even reaching a record 4.8% share in December. The Toyota Auris is the second star of the year, exactly doubling its sales over 2012 and up a huge 22 spots to break into the year-end Top 10 for the first time at #9 with 5,141 sales and 1.9%. Two words for this success: station wagon and hybrid, formats that didn’t exist/weren’t successful with the previous generation. Notice also the Skoda Octavia up 7 ranks to #12, the Audi A3 up 5 to #22, Honda CR-V up 67% to #31, Toyota RAV4 up 77% to #33, Mercedes A-Class up 97% to #34 and VW Up! up 82% to #40.

The Kia Carens is one of 4 all-new nameplates in the Top 100 in 2013.

Further down, the Subaru Forester is up 66% to #46, Mazda CX-5 up 229% to #51 and the Mazda6 up 210% to #64. Four all-new nameplates find their way into the annual Top 100 this year: the Renault Captur leads the way at #77 with 976 sales and peaking at #24 in December, the Kia Carens lands at #94, Peugeot 2008 at #98 and the Skoda Rapid at #100. The Chevrolet Trax (#114) and Dacia Lodgy (#122) also get noticed. On this point, 2013 is the year Swedish consumers finally fell for low-cost brand Dacia: both the Duster at #78 (+151%) and the Sandero at #82 (+477%!) make their big entrance within the 100 most popular models in the country.

2013 Saab 9-3. It will be fascinating to follow Saab’s evolution at home in 2014.

For the first time ever on BestSellingCarsBlog I give you an all-models ranking for Sweden (up to #295!) and this allows us to witness a couple of interesting movements as far as on-again off-again legendary brand Saab. We indeed learn that the just-relaunched Saab 9-3 makes its entrance at #242 with 14 units (all sold in December) while the discontinued Saab 9-5 is down 97% and 97 spots to #272 with 4 sales and the discontinued Saab 9-3 down 100% and 183 ranks to #281 with 2 units sold. Finally, notice the Chevrolet Tahoe, a model only sold in a handful of European countries, down to #264.

December post: Sweden December 2013: Volvo XC60 breaks records

Previous year: Sweden Full Year 2012: Volvo V70 #1, VW Passat at best-ever

Two years ago: Sweden Full Year 2011: Volvo V70 leads for the 15th consecutive year

Full Year 2013 Top 295 All-models and Top 34 All-brands Ranking Tables below.