Best Selling Cars Around The Globe: In Germany, The People's Car Is More Popular Than Ever
Over the past couple of weeks we have traveled to New Caledonia, Iceland, The Entire World (yep!) and France. For this week, we are just crossing the border to go to Germany.
Now if sauerkraut, Oktoberfest, Mercedes and BMW are not your thing and you’ve had enough of Europe already, I’m surprised – but hey that’s ok because I have prepared 159 additional countries for you to visit in my blog, so don’t be shy and click away, ach ja!
Well this year in Germany for the first time ever a certain brand monopolizes the podium…
The main event in December is the 22nd place of the VW Up! with 3,058 sales and 1.3 percent share for its first true full month of sales in the country. This means that the new Up! is instantly reaching a level that the Audi A1 took a full year to get to for example – albeit not in the same price range. It will be fascinating to follow the Up!’s sales throughout 2012 as this is a category VW has struggled with in the past…
…with the Fox…
…and the Lupo
Over the full year, car sales in Germany are up 9 percent on 2010 to 3,173, 634 registrations. The VW Golf leads for the 31st consecutive time with sales up 3 percent to 258,059 units, its third strongest volume of the last 10 years.
For the first time ever in Germany, Volkswagen monopolizes the year-end podium with the Passat up a massive 56 percent to 103,507 sales and 3.3 percent share at
…and the Polo down 6 percent to 90,720 units and 2.9 percent share at #3.
The Opel Astra (+19 percent)…
and Mercedes C-Class (+11 percent) both lose one spot to #4 and #5 in spite of growing sales…
…the Opel Corsa is up 2 ranks to #6 and passed the Polo twice in the monthly ranking this year…
…the Ford Focus is up 14 percent to
…and the BMW 5 Series up a very healthy 30 percent and 6 spots to It is only the second time since the launch of the 5 Series nameplate in 1972 and the first time since 1990 that der Fünfer manages to rank within the German year-end Top 10!
The Audi A6/A7 has a fantastic year, up 45 percent to and even managed to be the brand’s best-seller for a couple of months. However it is the first time since 2000 that there is no Audi in the Top 10 and only the 2nd time in 26 years…
Foreign models-wise, the Skoda Fabia ( and Octavia ( are in the lead again…
…but Skoda being 100 percent owned by VW, the first ‘true’ import is the Hyundai i30 at #26 (+7 percent) followed by the Nissan Qashqai at #27 (+35 percent) and Renault Megane at #31 (+4 percent).
Notice also the BMW X1 up 26 percent to
…the Audi A1 landing at #30 for its first full year of sales at 28,932 units and 0.9 percent share, breaking into the Top 20 in November…
…the Ford C-Max up 175 to
…and the Peugeot 508 the best-performing all-new model at
Germany’s Top 30, full year 2011 PosModel2011ShareGrowth2010SharePos1VW Golf/Plus/Jetta258,0598.1%3%251,0788.6%12VW Passat103,5073.3%56%66,4962.3%73VW Polo90,7202.9%-6%96,9453.3%24Opel Astra86,5792.7%19%72,6852.5%35Mercedes C-Klasse79,8202.5%11%71,8712.5%46Opel Corsa70,1522.2%7%65,3042.2%87BMW 3er62,2802.0%-8%67,6432.3%58Mercedes E-Klasse61,3711.9%-9%67,4092.3%69Ford Focus61,1571.9%14%53,7201.8%1210BMW 5er59,7561.9%30%46,0141.6%1611Audi A459,0561.9%-1%59,8632.1%1012VW Touran55,4161.7%21%45,6841.6%1713Ford Fiesta53,9401.7%5%51,5981.8%1314Audi A353,8011.7%-15%63,4662.2%915BMW 1er52,8811.7%-4%55,3531.9%1116Skoda Fabia47,5791.5%-2%48,6091.7%1517Skoda Octavia46,5511.5%8%42,9461.5%1818Audi A6, A746,0761.5%45%31,6891.1%2319VW Tiguan45,6621.4%18%38,6871.3%1920Mercedes A-Klasse43,5421.4%-16%51,5791.8%1421Opel Meriva41,0971.3%29%31,7411.1%2222Mini40,3451.3%28%31,4771.1%2423VW Caddy37,3971.2%25%30,0051.0%2624VW Transporter33,5551.1%-9%36,6911.3%2125BMW X133,4801.1%26%26,6340.9%3026Hyundai i3032,6971.0%7%30,4981.0%2427Nissan Qashqai32,6511.0%35%24,1480.8%3128Mercedes B-Klasse30,0530.9%-20%37,5261.3%2029Smart Fortwo29,4650.9%1%29,0651.0%2730Audi A128,9320.9%242%8,4480.3%83 Germany’s Top 30, December 2011 PosModelDecShare1VW Golf/Plus/Jetta16,3436.7%2VW Passat7,1982.9%3BMW 3er7,0642.9%4Opel Astra6,8542.8%5Opel Corsa6,3602.6%6Mercedes C-Klasse6,3292.6%7VW Polo5,4922.2%8Ford Focus4,6161.9%9BMW 1er4,6011.9%10Audi A6, A74,4591.8%11BMW 5er4,4501.8%12Ford Fiesta4,2741.7%13Mercedes E-Klasse4,2671.7%14Audi A34,0791.7%15Audi A43,9851.6%16Mini3,8701.6%17Skoda Octavia3,6791.5%18VW Touran3,6241.5%19VW Tiguan3,4311.4%20VW Transporter3,2201.3%21BMW X13,1521.3%22VW Up!3,0581.3%23Skoda Fabia3,0191.2%24Mercedes B-Klasse2,9051.2%25Mercedes A-Klasse2,8881.2%26Opel Meriva2,7491.1%27VW Caddy2,5761.1%28Hyundai i302,4711.0%29Nissan Qashqai2,3301.0%30Audi A12,2830.9%
Now for the traditional golden nugget: In the luxury segment, the Mercedes CLS multiplies its sales by 5 to 6,248 units at the Porsche Panamera is up 27% to the VW Phaeton up 47% to BMW 6 series up 130% to Mercedes SLS AMG up 40% to Ferrari 458 Italia up 55% to and Rolls Royce as a whole is up 66%.
And there you are, a total expert on the German car market look at you!
Source: www.kba.de, www.autobild.de
Matt Gasnier, based in Sydney, Australia, runs a blog named Best Selling Cars, dedicated to counting cars all over the world.
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Thanks Fusion, Indeed I have access to a detailed split for Golf, Golf Plus and Jetta. The 2011 splits are not available yet. If you are interested in historical data for Germany my blog has a model ranking for each year from 1946 to 2010. See here: http://bestsellingcarsblog.com/2011/12/18/germany-1946-2010-detailed-historical-data-now-available/ There is a Top 100 for each year since 1979. You will see that the VW Golf was #1 in Germany for 35 of the last 37 years!
Where are Opel Insignia and Ford Mondeo?