The Spanish passenger car market put in a very strong performance in January with the true fleet sector up 20.9%, according to latest Dataforce figures.

Seat had a strong month in Spanish fleet with growth of +151.7%

The rise – the highest monthly percentage growth since November 2016 – follows a 12.5% increase in 2017 and was accompanied by positive figures in other sectors too. Private market registrations increased by 15.5% over January 2017 while special channels were up 24.9%. Overall registrations totalled almost 106,000 units – the highest January volume since 2007.

Within the manufacturer league table, Volkswagen recapture the lead in the ranking from Renault helped by strong performances of the models Tiguan and Golf and the new T-Roc small SUV.  Meanwhile Renault dropped back to 7th position after being number one in October, November and December 2017.

Seat jumped from 11th position into rank number two with a growth of 151.7% and achieved a market share of 8.8%, its best in almost three years (February 2015). While the registrations of the Ateca increased by +23.7% the Ibiza and the Leon both more than doubled their volumes. The new small SUV Arona also contributed significantly and was already number four in the true fleet model behind Volkswagen Golf, SEAT Ibiza and Leon.

Toyota climbed into fifth position behind Audi and Peugeot with a growth of 51.4% followed by Mercedes, Renault, BMW, Ford and Opel.

Outside the top 10, Škoda doubled its registrations (+104.2%) and pushed its market share to 3% for the first time since August 2015. However, the increase was not only triggered by SUV models; the Fabia and Octavia and especially the Superb performed exceptionally well, ranking number two in the middle-class segment behind Volkswagen Passat.

Dataforce also noted the rise of the SUV segment, which scored a new record share in January with almost 40% (39.7%) of the true fleet market. The popularity of SUVs in Spain is not only higher than in all other big European Markets but also based on many pillars. Only the Mercedes GLC (ranked 5th) achieved exactly the same number of registration as 12 months ago while all other models within the top 30 SUV in January saw growing volumes compared to January 2017. The top five sellers were Seat Arona, Volkswagen Tiguan, Nissan Qashqai, Audi Q3 and Mercedes GLC.

In contrast, the van segment declined by 24.0% in a growing market. In January, vans accounted for only 5.5% of all true fleet registrations which is the lowest percentage ever recorded by Dataforce for Spain. Since 2013 the share declined by 50% while the share of SUV almost doubled.

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