The minicar segment in Europe as a whole saw flat in the first three quarters of 2013 compared to the same period last year. Minicar-specialist Fiat is the traditional leader of the segment, although Panda sales are down and first place has been taken by its sister Fiat 500, with VW Up! becoming a serious threat for second place as well.
Zooming in on the battle between the two triplets in the ranking, the Bratislava-built Up!, Citigo and Mii rack up 154.734 sales (+44%) between them, while their much older rivals Aygo, C1 and 107 still hold strong with 137.506 combined sales (-15%). What’s interesting, is that the Kolin-built triplet divide sales pretty evenly among themselves, while VW Up! takes about two thirds of the three model’s combined sales, almost 4,5 times as many as its little sister Seat Mii. Read my article about Seat’s fate within the VW-Group, where I mention this phenomenon as well.
Lancia Ypsilon sales are heavily dependent on its home market, with 35.199 of its 43.536 sales, that means only 8.337 or 19% of total were sold outside of Italy! 1.750 of those had a Chrysler badge, destined for the U.K. Italy also has a 65% share of Fiat Panda sales, compared to 26% of Fiat 500 sales. Their dependence on the volatile Italian market (declining for 40 consecutive months now) poses a serious threat to Lancia Ypsilon and Fiat Panda. Imagine Fiat’s fate if it hadn’t come up with the reincarnated 500?
Further down, we see Opel Adam not (yet?) making the waves Opel had hoped it would, with a disappointing 35.437 sales. Toyota iQ sales of just 4.427 (-41%) support Toyota’s decision to take the model out of the European market by 2014. The same thing goes for Nissan Pixo (-58% at just 3.003 sales), which never really came close to the numbers of its original, Suzuki Alto (+11% at 21.641 sales).
Also read: subcompact car sales: Ford Fiesta leads
| Jan-Sep 2013 | Jan-Sep 2012 | Change | |||
| 1. | Fiat 500 | 121.489 | 114.214 | 6% | |
| 2. | Fiat Panda | 118.678 | 140.848 | -16% | |
| 3. | VW Up! | 97.321 | 80.610 | 21% | |
| 4. | Renault Twingo | 59.840 | 72.612 | -18% | |
| 5. | Smart Fortwo | 49.413 | 54.385 | -9% | |
| 6. | Hyundai i10 | 47.892 | 53.698 | -11% | |
| 7. | Toyota Aygo | 47.870 | 54.450 | -12% | |
| 8. | Citroën C1 | 45.684 | 52.009 | -12% | |
| 9. | Peugeot 107 | 43.952 | 56.233 | -22% | |
| 10. | Lancia/Chrysler Ypsilon | 43.536 | 45.133 | -4% | |
| 11. | Ford Ka | 40.026 | 49.072 | -18% | |
| 12. | Kia Picanto | 38.637 | 47.442 | -19% | |
| 13. | Skoda Citigo | 35.480 | 15.569 | 128% | |
| 14. | Opel/Vauxhall Adam | 35.437 | 8 | – | |
| 15. | Chevrolet Spark | 27.792 | 38.035 | -27% | |
| 16. | Seat Mii | 21.933 | 11.456 | 91% | |
| 17. | Suzuki Alto | 21.641 | 19.510 | 11% | |
| 18. | Suzuki Splash | 12.501 | 13.224 | -5% | |
| 19. | Opel/Vauxhall Agila | 11.054 | 18.637 | -41% | |
| 20. | Mitsubishi Space Star/Mirage | 10.454 | 1 | – | |
| 21. | Toyota iQ | 4.427 | 7.566 | -41% | |
| 22. | Nissan Pixo | 3.003 | 7.179 | -58% | |
| Segment total | -1% | ||||