Hungary September 2020: Resurgent Suzuki (+460.4%) helps trigger first market gain since January (+18.6%)

Suzuki reclaims the YTD top spot “at home” in Hungary.

After six consecutive double-digit falls and seven straight market drops, new car sales in Hungary sign their first year-on-year uptick since last January, and a spectacular one at that, at +18.6% to 11.449 units in September. This leads to a year-to-date tally down -21.7% to 90.092. This sudden market surge has a lot to do with exceptionally low year-ago volumes by market leader Suzuki now shooting up 460.4% to 15.1% share and finally reclaiming the YTD top spot. When removing the local producer from the monthly totals, September volumes would only edge up 4%.

Nevertheless the entire Top 6 brands are up by at least double-digits and in addition to Suzuki, another four outpace the market: Toyota (+61.5%), Dacia (+35.7%), Volkswagen (+25.3%) and Skoda (+19.9%) with Ford (+15.2%) the only one slightly below the market growth rate but up 3 spots to #3 YTD. In contrast Opel (-59.3%), Renault (-58%) and to a lesser extent Kia (-15%) implode.

Model-wise, the Suzuki Vitara (+1640.4%) and SX4 S-Cross (+4386.7%) remain in the Top 2 spots while the Dacia Duster (+111.6%) ensures the podium is unchanged on August. The Ford Tourneo Custom takes all advantage of tax rebates for 7-seat vehicles, advancing to #4 for the months and #8 YTD, the Jeep Renegade and Fiat 500 are each up two spots to #6 and #7 respectively and the Kia Ceed (-25%) rounds out the Top 10 like last month.

Previous month: Hungary August 2020: Dacia smiles (+23.4%), Suzuki cries (-66.9%) in market down -30.1%

One year ago: Hungary September 2019: Opel and Astra snap lead, Suzuki (-73.9%) outside Top 10

Full September 2020 Top 10 brands and models below.