Best Selling Cars Around The Globe: Mexico, Nissan's Kingdom

After Argentina and Brazil some weekends ago, our whirlwind tour around the globe takes us back to the American continent this weekend, further up north, on a visit to Mexico.

Now if Mexican cars don’t excite you as much as a plate of nachos, that’s ok! There are 153 other países to explore in my blog. You will enjoy it mucho mucho, te lo prometo!

After a peak at 1.140 million units in 2006, the Mexican new car market had been slipping down, accelerating its fall to minus 26 percent in 2009. The drop was halted in 2010 when the market grew 9 percent at 820,406 registrations. So far, 2011 is looking pretty good too, with a 12 percent increase over the first quarter.

If you have never been to Mexico, this will surprise you: Mexico is the country in the world where Nissan is the most successful! Yep, it’s not Japan, and it’s not even an Asian country. Celebrating its 50th anniversary in the country this year, Nissan is by far the best selling brand in Mexico with a 24 percent market share during the first quarter of 2011.

Nissan is so popular in Mexico that partner Renault launched some of its models under the Nissan brand, just there. In 2002, the Renault Symbol was released as the Nissan Platina, to some success: the model was number 2 in 2005 and 2006.

In 2007, Renault launched the popular (and on paper perfect for Mexico) Dacia Logan as the Nissan Aprio, but it flopped.

Instead, it is the Nissan Tsuru, a 1991 Nissan Sentra, that has been dominating the Mexican market for the last six years.

Particularly popular with taxi companies, the Nissan Tsuru is a no-frill, robust and affordable sedan ($US9,000) that fits the bill perfectly for the Mexican consumer and, 20 years after its original launch, it seems to never want to end its reign. It still holds the pole position over the first quarter of 2011 with 15,804 sales and 7.5 percent market share.

Actually, there is one car that could start to threaten the Tsuru’s domination, and it is also an old generation model that has been kept in production as a low cost offer.

Volkswagen has not managed to lead the models ranking since 2003 when the Pointer (the Mexican Gol) was all the rage. In late 2010, the 6th generation Jetta was launched, and the existing generation (in fact a restyled 4th generation dating back to 1999) was renamed ‘Clasico’.

And the VW Clasico led the Mexican car market in February 2011 just above the Tsuru. It is up 65 percent year-on-year over the first quarter of 2011…

Confirming the hold it has on the country, Nissan places a second model on the podium: the Nissan Tiida sedan, known as Versa across the border. At 5.6 percent market share over Q1 2011, it is up an astounding (given the model is about to be face lifted) 65 percent year-on-year. Mexico is one of the Tiida’s top 3 performing countries in the world.

Did I mention Nissan kicked ass in Mexico?

But wait there’s more: a total of 4 Nissans in the Top 7! The Sentra is number 6 and the Chasis Largo is number 7 and best selling commercial vehicle.

General Motors is the number 2 brand in the country and it shows in the models Top 10: the Aveo is number 4, the Spark number 8 and the Chevy tres puertas (a 1993 Opel Corsa) number 9…

One last development you absolutely need to be aware of if you want to show off your knowledge of the Mexican car market is the constant progression of Spanish manufacturer Seat since its introduction in the country in 2001, and especially since the launch of the last generation Ibiza in 2009. Seat is now the tenth most successful brand in the country, with sales up 55 percent year-on-year in Q1 2011.

The Seat Ibiza lodged its best ever month in Mexico in March 2011, ranking 9th with 1,365 sales and 1.8 percent share.

Now that I’ve gone through it in a certain amount of detail I thought you’d like to see the Top 10 best selling cars in Mexico during Q1 2011:

Top 10 Mexico Q1 2011:

And the same ranking for the whole of 2010 …

Top 10 Mexico Full Year 2010:

Now if you want to know the Mexican market in more detail month by month for the last 6 months and year by year up to 2003, you can always check my blog here.

That’s all for today!

Source of Mexican sales figures: Asociacion Mexicana de Distribuidores de Automotores, A.C.

Matt Gasnier, based in Sydney, Australia, runs a blog named Best Selling Cars, dedicated to counting cars all over the world.