Sales of minicars in Europe decline by 1% in 2017 to just under 1.25 million units, which means their share of the total European car market declined from 8.4% in 2016 to 8.1%. The segment is expected to show another small decline in 2018 before stabilizing at about 1.23 million sales until 2020.
Fiat remains ultra-dominant in this segment with a share of over 30% thanks to its two models. Thanks to an increase of 3%, the Fiat 500 reclaims the segment lead it also held from 2013 to 2015, knocking its sibling Fiat Panda down into 2nd place. Even though their total European volumes are within a few thousand units of each other, there’s a big difference in the way these two models achieve these sales. The 500 is successful across almost all of Europe, while the Panda is heavily dependent on its home market Italy, which accounts for 78% of its sales (or almost 146,000 units), compared to just 28.5% for the 500 (or nearly 54,000 sales).
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