Colombia Full Year 2018: Renault up to just 175 units off Chevrolet, places Sandero #1 for third straight year

The Renault Sandero is the best-selling vehicle in Colombia in 2018.

Consult 30 years of Colombian Historical Data here.

The Colombian new car market stops 3 straight years of decline on their tracks in 2018 with a splendid 7.7% uptick to 256.662 registrations, the largest annual volume since 2015. The market was only up 1.1% at end-August, but a particularly strong last 4 months enabled the sizeable annual gain with September up 10.9%, October up 9.3%, November up 24.4% and December up 30.2%. Pickup trucks soar 26.3% to 15.457 sales, SUVs gain 13% to 83.128 while passenger cars edge up 4.3% to 131.406 units and taxis nudge up 1.5% to 8.865.

Looking at the origin of new vehicle sales, Colombia remains the most common at 77.920 but stable deliveries mean its share thaws from 32.7% to 30.4%. Mexico (+3.4%) comes second at 48.364 and 18.8% share vs. 19.6% a year ago, ahead of South Korea (-12.8%) at 26.221 and 10.2% vs. 12.6%, Brazil (+49.2%) at 25.279 and 9.8% vs. 7.1%, Europe (+34.1%) at 17.833 and 6.9% vs. 5.6%, Japan (+6.4%) at 17.715 and 6.9% vs. 7%, Thailand (+28.2%) at 11.777 and 4.6% vs. 3.9% and China (-4.4%) at 10.298 and 4% vs. 4.5%. Forecast for 2019 is for a price increase of cars on sale in Colombia resulting from the 8.9% depreciation of the local currency vs. the US dollar in 2018, which in turn should slow the market growth to 1.5% to 2.5% at roughly 260.000 units.

Although Chevrolet (-2.6%) remains the most popular carmaker in Colombia in 2018 at 19.4% share, it is by a very thin thread (175 units) above Renault (+6.1%) also ending the year with a 19.4% share. Renault topped the monthly charts no less than 6 times (vs. 2 in 2017): in March, June and from September to December without interruption. Nissan (+10%) improves to 9% share in third place, Mazda (+15.1%) overtakes Kia (+6.1%) for 4th place, with Toyota (+47.8%) and Volkswagen (+44.6%) posting by far the largest gains in the Top 15, Suzuki (+14%) up one spot to #9 but Hyundai (-42.6%) and Ford (-17.3%) in great difficulty. Further down, Fiat (+534.3%), Jeep (+120.7%), Mini (+82.3%), Citroen (+71.1%), JMC (+67.6%), Peugeot (+64%), Changan (+63.3%), Volvo (+39.2%), Subaru (+32.2%), BMW (+30.3%) and Mercedes (+27.8%) are the most dynamic.

Model-wise, the Renault Sandero (+5.6%) is the best-selling vehicle in the country for the third year in a row and the 4th time in total (add 2012), doubling the gap with the Chevrolet Spark at #2 from to 3.643 in 2017 to 7.259 units this year. The Renault Logan (+5.2%), Kia Picanto (+11.9%) and Renault Duster (+18.7%) all overtake a freefalling Chevrolet Sail (-41.1%) just as the Mazda2 (+55.5%) leaps up 5 spots to #7 and the Chevrolet Beat lands directly at #8. The VW Tiguan (+209.3%), Jetta (+152.6%), Amarok (+118.8%), Toyota Fortuner (+101.2%), BMW X3 (+98.6%), Toyota Hilux (+79.5%), Mercedes GLC (+68.8%), Toyota Prado (+60.4%), Chevrolet Onix (+59.2%), VW Voyage (+55.3%), Mercedes GLA (+50.8%) and Renault Kangoo (+48.3%) all make waves.

Previous month: Colombia November 2018: Renault (+39.6%) threepeats in market up 24.4%

Previous year: Colombia 2017: Renault Sandero repeats win, market down 6.1%

Two years ago: Colombia 2016: Renault keeps strong momentum, places Sandero #1

Full Year 2018 Top 30 brands and Top 100 models vs. Full Year 2017 figures below.

Full December 2018 Top 30 brands below.