The compact car segment in Europe sees 25% fewer deliveries in the first quarter of 2020, which is in line with the overall market. That means Europe’s #2 segment keeps an 18% of the total European car market, at just over 547,000 sales.
Europe’s best seller is obviously also still the segment leader, but the VW Golf is down 32% as the new generation is just arriving in showrooms, and it loses 1.5 percentage points of share. The Ford Focus and Skoda Octavia outperform the market and gain share, but the big winner of the segment is the Toyota Corolla, all new last year and straight into fourth place in the first quarter, not far behind the Octavia. The Czech model will be renewed this year which means it may actually fall behind a bit in coming months during the model changeover but may strike back once deliveries of the new generation pick up traction. Its sibling model Seat Leon also gains share with a loss of just 11% and it too will be replaced this year. The Peugeot 308 loses share, but the big loses of the top-20 is the Opel/Vauxhall Astra, something which a minor facelift isn’t going to make much of a difference with. The Kia Ceed, Renault Megane and Fiat Tipo also lose share, and the latter stays just ahead of the Skoda Scala which is just about to celebrate its first birthday. It lands ahead of the Hyundai i30 which has a stable share.
The Nissan Leaf EV gains share with its 10% loss and falls behind its rival Volkswagen e-Golf (not counted separately in this table), while the Mazda3 is one of the very few nameplates to improve year-over-year at +3% to gain 0.4 percentage points of share, moving ahead of the Hyundai Ioniq and Honda Civic, the latter of which loses more than half of its sales on last year. The Opel Ampera-e is up almost fourfold, but it won’t add many sales in the next three quarters as final stocks have been mostly cleared by now. It’s ahead of the Toyota Prius for now.
The luxury part of the segment accounts for 27.3% of total compact car sales in Europe, up from 26% in Q1 of 2019. The Mercedes-Benz A-Class slightly improves its share and claims the #5 spot overall. The BMW 1-Series is closing in with an 11% decline, moving past the Audi A3 which is about to be renewed this year. Not far behind the A3 is the Mercedes-Benz CLA, up 39% thanks to the new generation. Mercedes had a good start of the year with its small cars again, as the B-Class also outperformed the segment at -8%. The brand now holds a 13% share of the compact car class overall, up from 10.8% last year. The BMW 2-Series Active and Gran Tourer are down 38%, while the 2-Series Coupe & Convertible outperform the market at -14% thanks to the addition of the front-wheel drive Gran Coupe four-door. The BMW i3 loses ground at -36% while the Mini Clubman is down 26%.
| Compact segment | 2020-Q1 | 2019-Q1 | Change | 2020 share | 2019 share | |
| 1 | Volkswagen Golf | 74.550 | 109.891 | -32% | 13,6% | 15,1% |
| 2 | Ford Focus | 52.335 | 65.714 | -20% | 9,6% | 9,0% |
| 3 | Skoda Octavia | 43.699 | 56.401 | -23% | 8,0% | 7,7% |
| 4 | Toyota Corolla | 41.150 | 12.491 | 229% | 7,5% | 1,7% |
| 5 | Mercedes-Benz A-Class | 38.637 | 50.815 | -24% | 7,1% | 7,0% |
| 6 | Seat Leon | 28.466 | 31.966 | -11% | 5,2% | 4,4% |
| 7 | BMW 1-series | 28.377 | 31.720 | -11% | 5,2% | 4,3% |
| 8 | Peugeot 308 | 25.348 | 39.484 | -36% | 4,6% | 5,4% |
| 9 | Audi A3 / S3 / RS3 | 20.793 | 38.918 | -47% | 3,8% | 5,3% |
| 10 | Opel/Vauxhall Astra | 19.920 | 37.501 | -47% | 3,6% | 5,1% |
| 11 | Mercedes-Benz CLA | 19.229 | 13.828 | 39% | 3,5% | 1,9% |
| 12 | Kia Ceed | 17.895 | 25.391 | -30% | 3,3% | 3,5% |
| 13 | Renault Megane | 17.876 | 31.260 | -43% | 3,3% | 4,3% |
| 14 | Fiat Tipo | 14.845 | 22.827 | -35% | 2,7% | 3,1% |
| 15 | Skoda Scala | 14.251 | 71 | 19972% | 2,6% | 0,0% |
| 16 | Mercedes-Benz B-Class | 13.443 | 14.554 | -8% | 2,5% | 2,0% |
| 17 | Hyundai i30 | 13.408 | 17.898 | -25% | 2,4% | 2,5% |
| 18 | BMW 2-series Active/Gran Tourer | 8.843 | 14.277 | -38% | 1,6% | 2,0% |
| 19 | Nissan Leaf | 8.509 | 9.484 | -10% | 1,6% | 1,3% |
| 20 | Mazda3 | 7.589 | 7.381 | 3% | 1,4% | 1,0% |
| 21 | Hyundai Ioniq | 7.029 | 8.643 | -19% | 1,3% | 1,2% |
| 22 | Honda Civic | 5.864 | 12.973 | -55% | 1,1% | 1,8% |
| 23 | BMW 2-series Coupe & Convertible | 5.273 | 6.153 | -14% | 1,0% | 0,8% |
| 24 | BMW i3 | 5.217 | 8.210 | -36% | 1,0% | 1,1% |
| 25 | Mini Clubman | 4.595 | 6.196 | -26% | 0,8% | 0,8% |
| 26 | Alfa Romeo Giulietta | 2.658 | 4.776 | -44% | 0,5% | 0,7% |
| 27 | Opel Ampera-e | 2.006 | 543 | 269% | 0,4% | 0,1% |
| 28 | Toyota Prius | 1.203 | 1.671 | -28% | 0,2% | 0,2% |
| 29 | Volvo V40 | 1.191 | 12.100 | -90% | 0,2% | 1,7% |
| 30 | Lexus CT | 1.139 | 1.845 | -38% | 0,2% | 0,3% |
| 31 | Citroën C-Elysee | 857 | 1.648 | -48% | 0,2% | 0,2% |
| 32 | Hyundai Elantra | 522 | 283 | 84% | 0,1% | 0,0% |
| 33 | Skoda Rapid | 265 | 14.068 | -98% | 0,0% | 1,9% |
| 34 | Infiniti Q30 | 198 | 350 | -43% | 0,0% | 0,0% |
| 35 | Peugeot 301 | 89 | 389 | -77% | 0,0% | 0,1% |
| 36 | Lada Vesta | 67 | 370 | -82% | 0,0% | 0,1% |
| 37 | Subaru Impreza | 47 | 694 | -93% | 0,0% | 0,1% |
| 38 | Toyota Auris | 42 | 15.576 | -100% | 0,0% | 2,1% |
| 39 | Volkswagen Jetta | 6 | 74 | -92% | 0,0% | 0,0% |
| 40 | Seat Toledo | 5 | 788 | -99% | 0,0% | 0,1% |
| 41 | Volkswagen Beetle | 3 | 302 | -99% | 0,0% | 0,0% |
| 42 | Nissan Pulsar | 2 | 370 | -99% | 0,0% | 0,1% |
| 43 | DS4 | 1 | 176 | -99% | 0,0% | 0,0% |
| Segment total | 547.442 | 730.171 | -25% |
Car sales statistics are from the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.
Sources: Manufacturers, ANDC, JATO Dynamics.