Small car winners

Fiat 500 was the small car winner (fleet and retail combined), having had another great year grabbing 15% of its market.

Hyundai was just behind with 12% – managing to push its i10 past the aged (and now replaced) Ford Ka. Peugeot and Citroën were fourth and fifth with Citroën making a massive push and doubling fleet sales on the previous year.

Ford’s Fiesta topped the supermini segment. Vauxhall’s Corsa was four percentage points behind at 18%.

VW Polo, Peugeot 207 and Renault Clio predictably made up the top five. Renault volume fell the furthest; the company sold 34% fewer cars than last year.

Its stablemate, Nissan, took the same direction with its unsatisfactory new Micra.

Kia has been charging hard with Rio and more than doubled sales last year.

In the super-competitive, mainstream lower-medium sector, fleet remained reasonably buoyant, but retail was hammered, with a decline of 18%.

Ford was the dominant player, but second place was fiercely contested between the two Vs – Vauxhall has been playing a strategic game over the year in order to avoid selling large numbers of Astras at a loss. Volkswagen took advantage with its Golf.

So while segment volume was down 12%, Ford was up 5% with much of that retail sales. At one point in the year, Vauxhall Astra was down 24%, with Golf 11% up.

Volkswagen also pushed hard with Jetta, which resulted in a 67% improvement on the same period last year. Citroën weighed in with the C4 and improved retail sales by 61%.

Premium players in the lower medium sector had mixed fortune. The BMW 1 Series was top dog, but was quite a bit down on the previous year losing a couple of points of market share.

Alfa took up slack in a big way. The Giulietta was just behind the Audi A3 having crept past Mercedes A and B Classes and the Volvo C30.

It is now taking 9% of the sector. This could be just a brainstorm by the erratic Italian company, now under newish management in the UK.