Italy’s economic rebound and the arrival of the refreshed Fiat 500 will help pull minicar sales out of a slump that caused the segment to drop to a five-year low in 2014, predict analysts at IHS Automotive.
European minicar sales fell 32 percent to 1,125,160 million in 2014 compared with 2009, with Italy down 50 percent to 244,642 during the period, IHS figures show.
However, the analyst firm predicts that Europe’s overall minicar sales will rise to about 1.2 million this year and 1.25 million next year because the volume in Italy — Europe’s No. 1 market for the entry-level models — is poised to increase to 260,000 this year and 300,000 in 2016.
That is still way below the roughly 500,000 minicars, also known as A-segment cars, that were sold in Italy in 2009, when a government-subsidized car-scrapping program artificially inflated demand. Similar schemes, which were used across Europe to boost sales during the height of the global financial crisis, pushed total minicar volume to 1.65 million five years ago.
Europe’s top selling five small cars last year were the Fiat 500; Fiat Panda; VW Up; Renault Twingo and Hyundai i10.
The news was not good for the PSA/ Peugeot-Citroen joint venture with Toyota to build 108, C1 and Aygo in the Czech Republic as the three ranked in the lower ten popular models with only the Vauxhall Adam and Smart ForTwo doing worse.
