Croatia June 2020: Renault (+36%), Kia (+63.1%) defy reeling market (-49.6%)

The Renault Clio is the best-selling vehicle in Croatia in June.

Even though the coronavirus pandemic had been relatively limited so far in Croatia with just above 3.000 total cases, the country is currently in the midst of a second wave with new daily cases back to their highest levels. Tourism, one of the main engines of Croatian new car sales, is decimated with tourist volumes down -99% year-on-year in April for example. As a result the Croatian new car market remains very affected in June at a ghastly -49.6% to 4.150 units, for now the steepest June decline among all twenty European markets we have had access to data for so far, pulling the year-to-date tally down -54.3% to 17.436.

Renault (+36%) completely ignores the depressed context to post an insolent double-digit gain and access the brands top spot for the month at 16.1% share. It’s impossible to not assume that this market-defying surge is connected to the usual sales backloading from Reanault potentially towards last-minute summer rental sales or even re-exports. Traditional leaders Volkswagen (-33.6%) and Skoda (-21%) are knocked down one spot each to #2 and #3 respectively despite resisting better than the market as does Dacia (-31.5%) at #4. We suspect Kia (+63.1%) is also boosted by artificial registrations to score the largest gain in the Top 20 at #5 overall. Mercedes (+36.7%) also impresses at #8 while further down, Tesla (+200%), Porsche (+88.9%) and Subaru (+66.7%) stand out but none holds more than 0.4% share.

Over in the models ranking, the Renault Clio (+195.7%) triples its sales year-on-year to easily score its first Croatian win since May 2019 with just under 10% share, selling over double the #2, the VW Polo (+63.1%) also sporting a spectacular year-on-year gain. The Dacia Sandero (+3.4%) is up two spots on May to ensure the podium is entirely in positive ahead of the Renault Captur (-10.3%) and Skoda Octavia (-58.5%). The Kia Stonic (+240.9%) continues to evolve much higher than in 2019 at #6 overall and #4 YTD, while the Ford Ecosport breaks into the Croatian Top 10 for the second time in the past 7 months and ever at #10, the Skoda Scala (+270%) and Karoq (+144.4%) both post large gains, the Skoda Kamiq (#12) continues to shine and the Mercedes B-Class (#19) becomes the first Mercedes to break into the Croatian monthly Top 20 since we started following this market in 2011.

Previous month: Croatia May 2020: Kia Stonic, VW Touran defy market crushed down -76.2%

One year ago: Croatia June 2019: Opel leads, Dacia, Hyundai and Citroen shine

Full June 2020 Top 35 All-brands and Top 20 models below.