Spain March 2017: VW Polo leads, Seat Ateca breaks into Top 10

The Seat Ateca makes its very first appearance in its home Top 10 this month.

* See the Top 45 All-brands and Top 290 All-models by clicking on the title *

After a meagre 0.1% gain in February, the Spanish new car market is back on track in March at +12.6% year-on-year to 126.272 deliveries, the highest March score since 2007 (173.778). The year-to-date total now stands at 309.570, up a vigorous 7.8% on the same period a year ago and the largest Q1 score since 2008 (347.762). This month’s growth can be considered healthy with business sales up 18.2%, private sales up 11.7% and rental sales trailing the market at “just” +9.3%. The year-to-date picture is in the same vein: business sales up 14.5% to 27.3% share, private sales up 6.8% to 49.2% share and rental sales up only 2.8% to 23.4% share. The Spanish market is now being lifted by business and private sales, not rental sales, which is a very healthy perspective indeed.

Brand-wise, the most popular this month is Volkswagen, up two ranks on February to become the only manufacturer with a five-digit sales figure in March at 10.093 (+30%). #2 Renault (+38%) and #3 Ford (+47%) both comfortably beat the market whereas Opel slides down 4%. Nissan (+24%) distances Seat (+9%) which was #1 last month. Among large March gainers, let’s pick Land Rover (+26%), Skoda (+28%), Audi (+29%),  Mini (+29%), Jeep (+36%) and Suzuki (+139) in the Top 25, Porsche (+45%), Alfa Romeo (+68%), Abarth (+73%), Jaguar (+86%), Maserati (+147%) and Infiniti (+309%).

There is a bit of movement atop the models ranking this month: the VW Polo (+73%) takes the lead above the Nissan Qashqai (+48%) and Renault Clio (+64%), the Opel Corsa is faithful to its traditional position in the market but distances the traditional leaders the Seat Leon (-18%) and Ibiza (-15%). It would appear the two star nameplates from Seat could potentially be cannibalised by the brand’s all-new SUV: the Ateca. This month the Ateca – exactly one year after appearing in the Spanish sales charts – breaks into its home Top 10 for the very first time at #10 with 1.8% share. Its previous best was #17 last October. The next few months will confirm whether there is indeed cannibalisation taking plane within the Seat lineup. March sales seem to say so.

Other great performers this month include the Ford Fiesta (+97%), the Ford Focus (+38%) and Hyundai Tucson (+25%) inside the Top 10, the Renault Captur (+35%), Citroen C3 (+36%) and Renault Mégane (+51%) inside the Top 30 and the Skoda Fabia (+63%), Audi A1 (+70%), Nissan Micra (+75%), VW Tiguan (+94%) and BMW X1 (+118%) inside the Top 50. The 2nd generation Peugeot 3008 leads recent launches (<12 months) at #24 (+5 spots on last month) ahead of the Toyota C-HR at #52 (-19), Ford Ka+ at #68 (+8) and Audi Q2 at #69 (+1). This month we welcome two new nameplate in the Spanish charts: the Alfa Romeo Stelvio (#179) and the 2nd generation Peugeot 5008 (#228). Like the 3008, the 5008 changes segment from MPV to SUV and is therefore counted separately from the 1st generation in Spain.

Previous month: Spain February 2017: Market growth slows to +0.1%

One year ago: Spain March 2016: First decline in 31 months on weak rentals

Full March 2017 Top 45 All-brands and Top 290 All-models below.