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…
But before I delve into the results for 2011 in Germany, I’d like to do a quick newsflash on December sales in particular as something special happened in Germany.
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 #2…
…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 #9…
…and the BMW 5 Series up a very healthy 30 percent and 6 spots to #10. 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 #18, 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 (#16) and Octavia (#17) 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 #25…
…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 #33…
…and the Peugeot 508 the best-performing all-new model at #92.
Germany’s Top 30, full year 2011
| Pos | Model | 2011 | Share | Growth | 2010 | Share | Pos |
| 1 | VW Golf/Plus/Jetta | 258,059 | 8.1% | 3% | 251,078 | 8.6% | 1 |
| 2 | VW Passat | 103,507 | 3.3% | 56% | 66,496 | 2.3% | 7 |
| 3 | VW Polo | 90,720 | 2.9% | -6% | 96,945 | 3.3% | 2 |
| 4 | Opel Astra | 86,579 | 2.7% | 19% | 72,685 | 2.5% | 3 |
| 5 | Mercedes C-Klasse | 79,820 | 2.5% | 11% | 71,871 | 2.5% | 4 |
| 6 | Opel Corsa | 70,152 | 2.2% | 7% | 65,304 | 2.2% | 8 |
| 7 | BMW 3er | 62,280 | 2.0% | -8% | 67,643 | 2.3% | 5 |
| 8 | Mercedes E-Klasse | 61,371 | 1.9% | -9% | 67,409 | 2.3% | 6 |
| 9 | Ford Focus | 61,157 | 1.9% | 14% | 53,720 | 1.8% | 12 |
| 10 | BMW 5er | 59,756 | 1.9% | 30% | 46,014 | 1.6% | 16 |
| 11 | Audi A4 | 59,056 | 1.9% | -1% | 59,863 | 2.1% | 10 |
| 12 | VW Touran | 55,416 | 1.7% | 21% | 45,684 | 1.6% | 17 |
| 13 | Ford Fiesta | 53,940 | 1.7% | 5% | 51,598 | 1.8% | 13 |
| 14 | Audi A3 | 53,801 | 1.7% | -15% | 63,466 | 2.2% | 9 |
| 15 | BMW 1er | 52,881 | 1.7% | -4% | 55,353 | 1.9% | 11 |
| 16 | Skoda Fabia | 47,579 | 1.5% | -2% | 48,609 | 1.7% | 15 |
| 17 | Skoda Octavia | 46,551 | 1.5% | 8% | 42,946 | 1.5% | 18 |
| 18 | Audi A6, A7 | 46,076 | 1.5% | 45% | 31,689 | 1.1% | 23 |
| 19 | VW Tiguan | 45,662 | 1.4% | 18% | 38,687 | 1.3% | 19 |
| 20 | Mercedes A-Klasse | 43,542 | 1.4% | -16% | 51,579 | 1.8% | 14 |
| 21 | Opel Meriva | 41,097 | 1.3% | 29% | 31,741 | 1.1% | 22 |
| 22 | Mini | 40,345 | 1.3% | 28% | 31,477 | 1.1% | 24 |
| 23 | VW Caddy | 37,397 | 1.2% | 25% | 30,005 | 1.0% | 26 |
| 24 | VW Transporter | 33,555 | 1.1% | -9% | 36,691 | 1.3% | 21 |
| 25 | BMW X1 | 33,480 | 1.1% | 26% | 26,634 | 0.9% | 30 |
| 26 | Hyundai i30 | 32,697 | 1.0% | 7% | 30,498 | 1.0% | 24 |
| 27 | Nissan Qashqai | 32,651 | 1.0% | 35% | 24,148 | 0.8% | 31 |
| 28 | Mercedes B-Klasse | 30,053 | 0.9% | -20% | 37,526 | 1.3% | 20 |
| 29 | Smart Fortwo | 29,465 | 0.9% | 1% | 29,065 | 1.0% | 27 |
| 30 | Audi A1 | 28,932 | 0.9% | 242% | 8,448 | 0.3% | 83 |
You can also see the Top 300 here
Germany’s Top 30, December 2011
| Pos | Model | Dec | Share |
| 1 | VW Golf/Plus/Jetta | 16,343 | 6.7% |
| 2 | VW Passat | 7,198 | 2.9% |
| 3 | BMW 3er | 7,064 | 2.9% |
| 4 | Opel Astra | 6,854 | 2.8% |
| 5 | Opel Corsa | 6,360 | 2.6% |
| 6 | Mercedes C-Klasse | 6,329 | 2.6% |
| 7 | VW Polo | 5,492 | 2.2% |
| 8 | Ford Focus | 4,616 | 1.9% |
| 9 | BMW 1er | 4,601 | 1.9% |
| 10 | Audi A6, A7 | 4,459 | 1.8% |
| 11 | BMW 5er | 4,450 | 1.8% |
| 12 | Ford Fiesta | 4,274 | 1.7% |
| 13 | Mercedes E-Klasse | 4,267 | 1.7% |
| 14 | Audi A3 | 4,079 | 1.7% |
| 15 | Audi A4 | 3,985 | 1.6% |
| 16 | Mini | 3,870 | 1.6% |
| 17 | Skoda Octavia | 3,679 | 1.5% |
| 18 | VW Touran | 3,624 | 1.5% |
| 19 | VW Tiguan | 3,431 | 1.4% |
| 20 | VW Transporter | 3,220 | 1.3% |
| 21 | BMW X1 | 3,152 | 1.3% |
| 22 | VW Up! | 3,058 | 1.3% |
| 23 | Skoda Fabia | 3,019 | 1.2% |
| 24 | Mercedes B-Klasse | 2,905 | 1.2% |
| 25 | Mercedes A-Klasse | 2,888 | 1.2% |
| 26 | Opel Meriva | 2,749 | 1.1% |
| 27 | VW Caddy | 2,576 | 1.1% |
| 28 | Hyundai i30 | 2,471 | 1.0% |
| 29 | Nissan Qashqai | 2,330 | 1.0% |
| 30 | Audi A1 | 2,283 | 0.9% |
You can also see the Top 50 here
Now for the traditional golden nugget: In the luxury segment, the Mercedes CLS multiplies its sales by 5 to 6,248 units at #117, the Porsche Panamera is up 27% to #148, the VW Phaeton up 47% to #161, BMW 6 series up 130% to #182, Mercedes SLS AMG up 40% to #206, Ferrari 458 Italia up 55% to #247 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.
Not a single Toyota or Honda in sight. And no pickup trucks, either.
Must be another planet.
Is there a breakdown of the Golf/Jetta/Golf Plus sales into the three separate models? It’s probably something like 80% Golf vs 20% for the two others. That would still put the Golf proper in the lead by a factor of 3 over the second-placed Passat.
So how did VW do it? Is the Golf so much better than the Astra and the Focus, or does VW undercut Ford’s and Opel’s prices? Considering that the current Golf is in its last year and that the MQB platform will allow VW to price the next one even more competitively, the competition should be very afraid.
Matt’s blog had a breakdown of Golf / Golf Plus / Jetta sales up to 2010, I don’t know if that isn’t available any more…
Acoording to that, in 2010 21.5% of the combined sales were Golf Plus (and 0.5% were Jettas…). If we assume that the percentage stayed constant, 55.500 Golf Plus would have been sold in 2011, which would put it on #12. The Golf by itself would stay far in front with 200k sales by itself.
Though in my opinion counting the Golf+ into the Golf sales is justified, since different body styles of the same model are usually counted as one. No one would want to calculate station wagons out of the total either…
Anyway, the Golf usually is more expensive than Ford and Opel, even though those are newer models. Why there is such a huge lead can be discussed, I’d guess good marketing, the fact that the Golf is just “the car” to buy in the class, timeless (for many: boring) design, a fair price, a good image, etc. come together.
If you look at the sales all over europe, the fact that the Golf is basically a player everywhere, even outside its home market, shows that it just might also be a very good car.
I do doubt that the sales of the next Golf will get much higher than this (always depending on what the competition does though – if Opel fails, a lot of those customers are gonna go towards VW). The market is still trending towards splitting up in Niches – no Golf will ever get close to what a Golf 2 sold, because people by now aren’t just offered “Polo, Golf, Passat” but instead can choose between “Up, Polo, Golf, Tiguan, Touran, Beetle, Scirocco, Caddy, Eos, Passat, Sharan” – and that from several manufacturers / brands. I do believe that with the “big nameplates” the levels are not gonna go up…
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?
Outside the Top 30!
Do they compete with Passat and A4 or considered to be Omega/Scorpio replacement?