Nissan is now the top-selling Asian automaker in Europe as far as sales is concerned. A total of 384,726 units were sold in the first 6 months of 2015, representing an increase of 4.3% versus this time last year.
New car registrations also jumped ahead in the first half of 2015 in a number of high volume markets including the UK (+34%), Spain (+18%) and Germany (+11%) where numbers were up versus Nissan’s main competitor. Powered by consistently high sales volume of the Nissan Qashqai as well as the 100% electric Nissan LEAF, Nissan’s market share in Europe now stands at 4.2%.
This success follows a record-breaking CY2014, a year in which Nissan Europe recorded the highest volume and market share in its history, with sales growing for 5 consecutive years. Growth looks set to continue into 2015. Only this month, Nissan’s St Petersburg facility, home of the new X-Trail, celebrated the production of its 200,000th vehicle, making it the fastest growing plant in Russia. Whilst in Italy, passenger car sales increased by more than 23% in the first half of the year, with 32,611 units sold.
Sales of the Nissan Qashqai also continue to break records with 2.5 million units sold. The UK, which is home to European production of Qashqai, also had a strong year having sold 88,000 vehicles in the first 6 months of the year – securing the highest ever passenger car market share in the brand’s history. This was mirrored in France where Nissan recorded its best ever market share of 3.7% for the first 6 months of 2015.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen remains as Europe’s best-selling brand and they delivered 901,452 cars from January to June, up by almost 9% which has helped the brand acquire a 12.1% market share.
