The compact car segment in Europe sees 5% fewer deliveries in 2019, as Europe’s #2 segment is down to 2.65 sales, or 16.9% of the total European car market, down from 18% in 2018. Europe’s best seller is obviously also still the segment leader, but the VW Golf is down 8% as the new generation will arrive in showrooms early 2020. The Ford Focus was new for 2019 and makes a 13% jump to leapfrog the Skoda Octavia and get back above 200,000 sales again. The Octavia is surprisingly stable considering it too will be renewed in 2020. The Peugeot 308 is down 8% and moves ahead of the Opel/Vauxhall Astra, down 14% as a minor facelift has done little to save the model from falling further. The Astra will have trouble staying ahead of the Seat Leon, Toyota Corolla and Renault Megane in 2020, as the Leon will be renewed, the Megane will get a facelift and an optional plug-in hybrid version and the Corolla has great momentum since its redesign, helped by the two hybrid versions and becoming the overall best selling model in Ireland, Latvia and Lithiania and taking overall 2nd place in Estonia, Finland and Poland.
Sales of compact cars in the United States are down by a worrying 16% in 2019, and the segment is down 1.6 percentage points of share of the total US car market, to 9.7%. It now holds 35% of the sedan market in the US, down from 36.8% in 2018. The Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla consolidate their leadership thanks to stable sales while their closest two rivals both see their sales drop by double digits. The Civic and Corolla are now not only the only two nameplates to sell over 300,000 cars each, but also the only ones to sell over 200,000 cars, with the Nissan Sentra and Hyundai Elantra both dropping below that threshold as both are down by 13%. The Civic and Corolla together hold 38% of the compact car segment (39.7% of non-luxury compact cars), up from 32% in 2018. We lose three members of the 100k sales club, as the Ford Focus and Chevrolet Cruze have been killed by their manufacturers and the Kia Forte dropped below that mark despite falling slower than the overall segment. We do welcome a returning member after a 1-year absence with the Jetta back above 100,000 sales again, allowing it to jump from 8th in 2018 to 5th in 2019. 
Sales of compact luxury cars in Europe are down 4% in the first half of 2019 to just over 400.000 units. Only four nameplates manage to improve their sales in this period while all the others are down by double digits. After storming to the top of the chart in 2018 for the very first time ever, the 
Sales of premium compact cars Europe are back to their 2015 volume after peaking at almost 940.000 units in 2016. With nearly 874.000 sales in 2017, the segment accounts for 5,6% of the total European car market, down from 6,1% the year before. The average age of the models in this segment is relatively high which explains some of the decline. The top-10 models ranking is exactly the same as 2016 but there have been some individual fluctuations and we have a new leader in the brands ranking. Audi still holds the top spot with the A3, but its 14% loss means a 1,5 percentage point of lost share as its rivals are closing in. The