Strongest monthly growth for French True Fleets
With an impressive surplus of 16.9% over the same month in 2017, July was the strongest growth month so far this year for the French True Fleet market, Dataforce reports. “It was also the best July in nine years”, says analyst Benjamin Kibies.
Since 2012, July has been the peak month for private car registrations in France. This past July, private cars amounted to 52.6% of the total, with the rest almost evenly divided between True Fleets (23.6%) and Special Channels (i.e. Dealership, Manufacturer and Short-Term Rental registrations, at 23.8%).
For French True Fleets, this marked a 16.9% growth over the previous July, the best month of 2018 so far. The Total market finished 18.9% up, with more than 175,000 registrations, making it the best July since 2010.
Brand ranking
Up 31.5%, Renault stayed comfortably on top in the brand ranking of the French True Fleet segment this July. The manufacturer fell just short of 10,000 units. The main pillar of its success was the Mégane (+57.6%), for the first time in 2018 outperforming the Peugeot 308, its rival for leadership in the Compact Car segment – if only by less than 40 units.
Peugeot took second place in the brand ranking, followed by Citroën, which maintained the previous month’s market share of 8.7%.
“French OEMs predominate in their home fleet market, to say the least. Since we started recording registration data from France in January 2003, there has not been a single month in which the trio Renault, Peugeot and Citroën did not occupy the Top 3 spots – though from time to time, VW came pretty close to gaining a podium position”, says Mr Kibies.
With a more than solid +25.3%, VW ranked fourth again this July, followed by Audi and Ford. Both Toyota (7th, +32.2%) and Nissan (8th, +32.9%) gained two positions. BMW and Mercedes, in 9th and 10th place, both had a tough month, with double-digit losses.
Just outside the Top 10, PSA’s premium brand DS had its best market share since May 2014, jumping into 13th place behind Fiat and Opel thanks to excellent sales of its new DS7 Crossback.
SUV Medium
That new DS model helped boost sales of the entire SUV Medium vehicle segment to a record share of 10% - also thanks to recent market entries in this segment by Alfa Romeo (with the Stelvio), Renault (Koleos), Skoda (Kodiaq) and others. Despite the success of these new entries, the long-established Peugeot 5008 (pictured) remained the segment leader, scoring its second-highest volume in the True Fleet market yet.
Also, the BMW X3 had its best result in over two years and the Audi Q5 scored a new record monthly volume.
“WLTP and a certain interest in getting cars registered before September 1st might have supported that, but in general the second generation of the Q5 seems to hit the taste of French company car drivers, especially when equipped with a diesel powertrain. But that applies to the whole segment, with a very consistent diesel share still close to 80%”, concludes Mr Kibies.
