European sales 2015-Q1 Compact segment

Europe’s second biggest segment keeps growing faster than the overall market, but only slightly at 10% for the compact car segment vs. 8,3% for all cars. The tight grip the Volkswagen Golf has held on the segment the last few years seems to soften a little bit, as the Golf grows slower than the segment. Still, more than one in every five compact cars sold in Europe is a Golf, and the VW Group has a 40% share of the segment, although that’s admittedly lower than 2014’s 44%.

The Ford Focus is stable on the first quarter of last year, despite its recent facelift. It does hold on to its second place, but just like its smaller sibling the Fiesta, it has strong March volume in the UK to thank for that. In January and February, the Skoda Octavia clearly outsold the Focus and even the Peugeot 308 came within 1.000 units for the two months combined. With over 32.000 units, more than half of the Ford’s volume in this quarter was registered in March alone.

The aforementioned 308 is the strongest gainer in the top-20 of the segment thanks to the new generation, its station wagon version and the European Car Of The Year award in March of last year. This also means it’s now officially outselling the Opel/Vauxhall Astra for the first time since 2004 and is likely to continue to do so for the rest of the year, as the latter won’t be replaced until the end of the year.

A similar trend is visible between the Seat Leon and Renault Megane. The Spanish challenger has all stars aligned with the all-new third generation Leon and the addition of a station wagon version, while the Megane is eagerly awaiting its replacement next year. At least the Megane is still in positive territory, while the Toyota Auris takes a hit at -7% as a facelift of the model is on its way.

The Citroën C4 Cactus impressively enters the top-10 in 9^th place with over 21.000 sales in the quarter, almost 10.000 more than the regular C4, down more than a third possibly due to some sibling rivalry but also as its facelifted version wasn’t yet fully available across Europe.

Some of my readers have brought up that the Citroën C4 Cactus is on the border of being a small crossover, competing more with the Renault Captur and Peugeot 2008 than with the Megane and 308. Citroën has even started calling it a crossover in some of their marketing. Let me know what you think in the comments below: keep it in the compact car segment or move it to the small suv segment?

The Mazda3 keeps improving and is just over 1.000 sales away from a top-10 position, while the all-new Nissan Pulsar outsells its British-made fellow Honda Civic, despite sales increasing 10% for the latter thanks to the addition of a station wagon version.

The Nissan Leaf also continues to improve, the first EV to sell more than 5.000 units in a quarter and more than double the selling rate of the hybrid Toyota Prius.

The last remaining Fiat Bravo and Linea in stock are being sold off, before the all-new Fiat Aegea sedan starts production in Turkey, at first for the local market and other Southern European countries where sedan models are still in demand, before the hatchback version will be launched across Europe to replace the Bravo.

	Compact segment	Q1 2015	Q1 2014	Change
1.	Volkswagen Golf	132.982	130.554	2%
2.	Ford Focus	60.600	61.254	-1%
3.	Skoda Octavia	54.506	52.526	4%
4.	Peugeot 308	48.829	33.635	45%
5.	Opel/Vauxhall Astra	46.863	46.263	1%
6.	Seat Leon	36.301	29.566	23%
7.	Renault Megane	34.058	31.420	8%
8.	Toyota Auris	32.846	35.298	-7%
9.	Citroën C4 Cactus	21.877	86	new
10.	Kia Cee’d	19.574	19.572	0%
11.	Skoda Rapid	18.834	19.334	-3%
12.	Hyundai i30	18.777	21.346	-12%
13.	Mazda3	18.443	13.489	37%
14.	Nissan Pulsar	13.904	0	new
15.	Honda Civic	12.602	11.460	10%
16.	Citroën C4	12.370	19.669	-37%
17.	Nissan Leaf	5.222	3.839	36%
18.	Volkswagen Beetle	5.170	5.932	-13%
19.	Toyota Corolla	4.458	4.396	1%
20.	Volkswagen Scirocco	3.455	2.246	54%
21.	Kia Soul	3.353	1.080	210%
22.	Seat Toledo	2.725	3.200	-15%
23.	Volkswagen Jetta	2.597	2.576	1%
24.	Toyota Prius	2.113	2.361	-11%
25.	Renault Fluence	1.569	1.486	6%
26.	Citroën C-Elysee	1.293	1.655	-22%
27.	Mitsubishi Lancer	1.171	860	36%
28.	Peugeot 301	655	902	-27%
29.	Fiat Bravo	205	1.120	-82%
30.	Subaru Impreza	171	441	-61%
31.	Chevrolet Cruze	73	5.163	-99%
32.	Honda CR-Z	24	133	-82%
33.	Honda Insight	24	234	-90%
34.	Fiat Linea	3	99	-97%
	Segment total	617.647	563.195	10%

 

Also check out the premium compact & small car segments, where the Audi A3 and Mini hold on to their respective top spots.

Click on any model to see its annual sales from 1997-2013 and monthly sales in 2012, 2013 and 2014, or use the dropdown menu in the top right of this site. Sources: Manufacturers, ANDC, JATO Dynamics.