Midsize Luxury SUV/Crossover Segment
Sales of midsized premium SUVs in Europe continue to grow in 2018, but at a lower rate than before. After four consecutive years of double digit growth, of which the last three years showed at least 20% growth, the segment was up “only” 5% in 2018. This still means that for the first time ever, over half a million luxury midsized crossovers were sold in Europe. And after claiming the segment lead last year, the Mercedes-Benz GLC consolidates its lead with a 13% gain to over 125,000 sales, almost one in every four sales in this segment. Please note that these figures include sales of the GLC Coupe, but even without those the GLC would easily top the ranking.
Just imagine the sales volume (and turnover) Mercedes-Benz has missed by completely failing with the design of its predecessor GLK, which peaked at just 33,000 sales and 15% of the segment in 2012. The Volvo XC60 is down 19% in the first full year of sales for the new generation, and this is mostly due to the strong finish of the previous generation, which even continued to be sold alongside the new model in its home market Sweden. Despite sales back to its 2016 level but its market share thawed to the lowest in at least 7 years, the XC60 still holds on to its #2 spot ahead of the Audi Q5, which sees stable sales in 2018, as it also did in 2017. The Q5 has been around 70,000 annual sales for three years now, even during the changeover to the next generation and last year’s introduction of the WLTP fuel efficiency testing procedures, which meant some versions of the Q5 (and many other models) could no longer be sold after September 1st, 2018.
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