The Spanish car market continues to see strong growth in 2018, recording its fourth month of growth.

Volkswagen’s T-Roc helped drive the brand into the top true fleet spot

Latest analysis by Dataforce shows total Spanish registrations were up 12.4% last month to almost 119,000 units. Private and true fleets registrations rose by 20.1% and 19.1% respectively while special channels remained static at just under 40,000 units.

Within the true fleet brand league table, eight out of the top 10 recorded double-digit growth rates. Volkswagen regained the lead from Renault, helped by strong performances of Polo, Tiguan and additional contributions from the all-new T-Roc, while Peugeot stayed in third position.

Audi jumped from eighth to fourth place, with true fleet registrations up 35.2% – the highest percentage growth in the top 10 and mainly fuelled by Q3 and Q5. Toyota stayed fifth with 23.2% growth, strongly supported by the Prius Plus, which more than doubled its volume over April 2017, driven by keen take-up for taxi use.

Mercedes came in sixth, followed by BMW (the only brand to suffer a drop compared to last year’s April), Seat and Opel while Nissan completed the top 10. Elsewhere in the league table, Fiat (rank number 13, +100.3%) and Kia (rank number 15, +72.3%) saw stellar growth rates.

Analysis by Dataforce’s Michael Gergen also showed that the SUV segment continues to grow, now taking a record 40.6% share of the Spanish True Fleet Market. Demand is spread evenly across the country, not just in the regions close to the Pyrenees (such as Gerona or Huesca) where take-up accounts for around 50%, but also in metropolitan areas such as Barcelona, Valencia and Sevilla with a share from 41% to 45% and 38% for Madrid.

Looking at fuel type performance, the diesel decline seems to have eventually stopped. Diesel registrations accounted for 63.2% of April’s fleet registrations, reaching a market share that actually stood slightly higher than both in February (62.3%) and March (62.4%) 2018.

The dual-fuel market accounted for 1.9% of the market, marking its second highest share ever and the best in terms of volume in the Spanish true fleet market up to now.