Poland May 2020: Skoda Fabia snaps first win in 15 months in market down -54.8%

The Skoda Fabia is the best-selling vehicle in Poland in May.

The COVID-19 curve hasn’t been flattened in Poland with total infections still on the rise: from 2.311 as of March 31 to 12.877 as of April 30 and 23.786 as of May 31. The Polish new car market does a little better than in April (-65.9%) at -54% to 24.496 registrations in May leading to a year-to-date tally down -37.7% to 163.229. When only taking account passenger cars, sales are down -54.8% to 20.757 for the month and -37.9% to 141.667 year-to-date.

Toyota (-49.3%) remains the best-selling carmaker in the country at 12.2% share above Skoda (-52.7%) while Renault (-55.1%) is back up 5 spots on April to #3, knocking Volkswagen (-70.7%) out of the podium. Audi (-17.7%), Kia (-31.7%), BMW (-34.6%) and Mercedes (-36.4%) post the best holds in the Top 15 but Opel (-71%), Hyundai (-60.1%) and Dacia (-57.1%) continue to struggle. Removing light commercials means Skoda (13.2% share) is a lot closer to Toyota (13.6%), Kia (7.4%) is up to #3 above Volkswagen and Dacia, BMW ranks #6 and Peugeot #13.

Model-wise, the Skoda Fabia (-50.6%) ends 12 consecutive months of reign by the Toyota Corolla (-61.2%) and snaps the Polish pole position for the first time since February 2019 but only ranks 4th year-to-date. The Skoda Octavia (-59.5%) drops to #3 just as the Dacia Duster (-50.4%) and Toyota RAV4 (-29.5%) round out the Top 5 like in April. In the remainder of the Top 10, the Fiat Ducato (-14%), Renault Clio (-31.4%), Toyota Yaris (-37.1%) and Kia Ceed (-37.5%) all post solid holds in context. The Skoda Scala advances to #14, the Toyota Camry to #25, the BMW X5 posts another stellar month at #27 and both the Mercedes C-Class (#36) and Suzuki Swift (#37) make rare appearances in the Polish Top 50.

Note: Since June 2019, we also publish the Top 15 brands and Top 50 models for passenger cars excluding light commercials. Once we have built a full 12 months of data we will shift to passenger cars only to align with the rest of the EU.

Previous month: Poland April 2020: Audi, BMW, Mercedes resist best in market down -65.9%

One year ago: Poland May 2019: Corolla (+155.7%) snaps first ever win, lifts Toyota (+30.9%) to #1 in record market

Full May 2020 Top 15 brands and Top 50 models below.