04 June 2020

This week’s new car registration figures were obviously, and significantly, lower than last year’s stats, but within the numbers there were some interesting insights.

While the whole market was down (on average 89%) some brands significantly outperformed others of a similar size.

Three examples. First up, Volvo and Citroen. At this point last year, both brands had a market share of 2.4%. During May 2020, however, Volvo took a 5.8% share while Citroen fell back to 1.7%. Somehow, Volvo retailers managed to get 1,167 new cars to customers while Citroen delivered 342.

If you think this may be a PSA thing, look at the second example.

If you look at Peugeot and Hyundai on a similar basis, brands with 3.5% and 3.6% shares YTD in 2019 respectively, then Peugeot clearly got it right in May 2020 with a 5.1% share while Hyundai dropped back to 1.2%.

And for our final example; Kia and Nissan. At this time last year they had market shares of 4.3% and 4.2% respectively yet in May 2020, Kia took 5.0% of the market while Nissan achieved just 2.8%.

If you’re looking for a reason why this should be, then look no further than the NFDA’s Dealer Attitude Survey. In these examples, all the winners were in the upper half, and scored well, for the question ‘How do you rate your manufacturer overall?’.

This just shows that if there’s a good, strong relationship between the franchise network and the national sales company it will help sell more cars – particularly when the going gets tough.

Tristan Young

Editorial Director

Auto Retail Network

Tags: Dealer Attitude Survey, new car sales, NFDA