2015 Europe Automotive Sales by Automaker – The Best-Selling Automotive Manufacturers By Sales Volume
Car sales in Europe increased 9% to 14.1 million units in 2015, which was better than expected, and means 1.2 million additional sales for a market still suffering from overcapacity. However, as both the US and China broke new sales records last year, Europe is still about 2 million sales off its peak of over 16 million sales in 2004 and 2005. As I mentioned in the December 2015 European car sales analysis, the diesel scandal has had very limited effect on the sales of the Volkswagen Group, as it remains the #1 manufacturer by far and even adds the most volume of all at close to 200,000 additional sales, even though that means a slower than average relative growth of +6%. Renault-Nissan performs almost as good or even better, depending on how you look at it: its 11% growth is pretty impressive, but its 190,000 additional sales mean that the gap between the VW Group and the French-Japanese alliance is still growing.
General Motors showed the slowest growth of all major manufacturers at +2.1% and that’s not only due to the discontinuation of Chevrolet, as Opel/Vauxhall also grew slower than the overall market at +6.1%. With the help of small crossovers Fiat 500X and Jeep Renegade, FCA managed to leapfrog Hyundai-Kia to reclaim 7th place in the manufacturers ranking. Meanwhile, luxury manufacturers have had a great year, with Daimler AG growing 17,1% to add over 120,000 sales and BMW growing 11.5% to add over 95,000 sales, and Jaguar–Land Rover (owned by Tata Motors of India) boosted sales 22.2% to pass Suzuki in the manufacturers ranking.
