Iran January 2017: Saipa Pride leads, Chery Tiggo 3x already in market

Iranian advertisement for the MVM X22 (aka Chery Tiggo 3x).

* See the Top 20 brands, Top 35 passenger cars and Top 10 pickups by clicking on the title *

Note all figures in this article are local production, not sales, and imports aren’t included. In January 2017 – roughly equivalent to the 10th month of the Persian year 1395 – 127.663 passenger cars and 6.041 pick-up trucks churned out of Iranian factories. The fight for the title of biggest local brand is getting more intense: Peugeot still holds the reins of the Iranian market with a mammoth 31.5% market share, all this despite no Peugeot 301 local production on the horizon still. Saipa now stands only 101 units below (!) at 41.983 vs. 42.084 for the French manufacturer, due to the continued success of the Pride – in fact a 1986 Kia Pride – which founds another 27.043 buyers this month in spite of its advanced 31 years of age. Iran Khodro rounds up the brands podium above Renault, Chery (renamed MVM here after a first launch in the 90s was aborted), JAC, Zamyad, Brilliance, Dongfeng and Kia. With Changan at #11, Lifan at #13, FAW at #15, Haima at #16 and Zotye at #17, we now have no less than 9 Chinese carmakers in the Iranian Top 20 this month…

Zamyad Z24 vs. Hummer H2 

The Pride is followed in January by the Peugeot 206, Peugeot 405 and Saipa Tiba up two spots on its FY2016 ranking to #4. The Peugeot Pars on the other hand is down three to #5. Launched last year, the Renault Sandero – baptised Saipa B90 here – continues its progression at #8 vs. #29 in 2016. It’s further down the ranking that we can spot some interesting finds. The Chery Fulwin 2 cracks the Top 10 thanks to a very robust 2.803 units poduyced this month, ahead of the JAC S5 (2,776) and Brilliance H330 (2.262). Chery also places the Tiggo 5 at #16, the Tiggo 3 at #17, the Arrizo 5 at #20 and, the novelty of the month, the Tiggo 3x (baptised MVM X22 here ) at #28 with 226 units produced, only months after its launch in China.

2017 Peugeot 301

Finally onto the elephant in the room: with Peugeot’s best-sellers in Iran being the 206 launched in 1998 and the 406 launched in 1987, it goes without saying that Iranian consumers have been screaming for the new Peugeot 301 – launched in 2012 and now facelifted (see above) to replace the obsolete 405. Not before 2018 or 2019 according to Peugeot though. Talk about hundreds of thousands of missed sales.

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Full January 2017 Top 20 brands, Top 35 passenger cars and Top 10 pickups below.