Sales in the Premium Mid-sized segment fell by 12 percent in the third quarter, a slightly slower decline than in the first six months of the year. This was not enough, however, to prevent the segment from once again putting in the worst performance from among all Premium segments. Unfortunately for the segment, while positive sales growth of the new Audi A4 and the market debut of Jaguar XE and Alfa Romeo Giulia are helping bring in some new customers, they will not on their own be enough to make up for the sales plight of the segment leaders.
Highlights for Q1-Q3 2016
- The top-4 models in the segment all experienced double-digit fall in sales this year, including the segment-leading BMW 3-series and 4-series and the still-newMercedes-Benz C-class
- The new Audi A4 registered a 6 percent growth in sales in the third quarter of the year, helping almost erase the model’s loss in 2016 compared to the year prior, and moving it up to fifth in the standings, at the expense of the Acura TLX
- The newly-facelifted Lincoln MKZ was the only other model to have experienced positive sales growth in the third quarter, leaving it with pretty much the same number of sales so far in 2016 as it had at this point in 2015
- Sales of Jaguar XE picked up somewhat in the third quarter, but at 2,371 they were still less than half of those for the next model on the standings, the aging Volvo S60/V60
- Still, this was a better performance than that of the Alfa Romeo Giulia, whose sales barely begun (7 sales total in September)
Note: Clicking on the model name opens the sales data page for that model; clicking year in the legend turns the display for that year on/off