SEAT Brand Sales By Nation : 2010-2015

The new SEAT Ateca SUV

SEAT has been a problem child for VW Group. Profit has been elusive and perhaps at times the definition of what the marque represents has been uncertain. For a brand that isn't that large, it needs to offer a point of difference to other makes. I know that VW wanted to buy Alfa Romeo not that long back, but why cannot SEAT be that for the VW group?

An SUV model is about to be introduced, the Ateca and you cannot be a serious car maker at any level without an SUV or crossover type of vehicle. The name sounds very similar to the SEAT Altea, so I'm surprised with the choice of moniker. SEAT has a goal of something like 60,000 sales in Europe for the Ateca.

Regarding some models for 2015, sales of the León went up by 4.4% (160,900) and was once again the brand’s top-selling car. The Ibiza accounted for 153,600 delivered vehicles (+2.4%). Meanwhile, the Alhambra posted the highest increase (+17.2%) and achieved the second best sales result in its history (27,000).

Below there are sales for the last six years in various countries. It doesn't cover every country as I don't have 2015 for every place and unless I had a 2015 figure, I didn't include it at all. In many a few sales will be missing as they will fall under light commercial sales, depending on how that is defined from place to place. The 'Rk' is the placing SEAT achieved in the nation for 2015.

Rk	Nation	2015	2014	2013	2012	2011	2010
10	Germany	94,673	93,129	83,364	68,109	59,030	50,449
2	Spain	77,580	67,923	59,136	54,856	73,524	89,423
19	UK	47,654	53,512	45,312	38,798	36,089	32,935
11	Mexico	24,148	21,330	21,189	21,114	18,115	13,380
18	France	22,009	21,090	22,039	24,180	33,268	30,645
15	Turkey	16,911	12,697	11,065	5,811	6,059	5,113
25	Italy	14,940	12,562	9,843	10,575	16,108	15,590
9	Austria	13,356	13,914	15,296	14,316	16,405	14,133
10	Switzerland	10,451	9,378	9,159	8,934	8,314	7,788
19	Netherlands	8,541	11,006	9,320	12,657	18,555	12,748
11	Israel	7,692	6,177	5,838	5,887	4,425	3,049
13	Portugal	7,204	6,895	3,874	2,605	9,047	13,944
21	Poland	7,181	5,532	2,278	1,756	2,822	3,708
10	Czech Rep	6,759	6,163	4,360	2,680	3,310	2,761
10	Algeria	6,551	17,806	23,037	13,752	4,022	1,944
19	Belgium	6,508	6,730	6,937	5,966	10,389	10,111
18	Denmark	4,552	4,526	4,938	3,648	2,054	1,697
21	Sweden	4,257	3,364	2,678	2,090	2,724	2,629
15	Ireland	2,499	2,402	2,190	1,362	1,763	1,642
16	Romania	1,800	1,452	850	650	1,351	1,662
13	Slovenia	1,796	1,527	1,189	1,028	1,391	1,298
18	Finland	1,710	1,799	1,632	1,449	1,903	1,460
17	Greece	1,623	2,041	1,965	1,243	3,029	3,799
19	Slovakia	1,190	1,513	1,095	1,373	2,321	1,693
16	Croatia	908	715	421	480	774	825
22	Hungary	846	772	558	446	741	2,040
17	Luxembourg	791	785	706	690	1,069	1,248
35	Ukraine	167	428	?	?	924	559
6	Leichtenstein	121	91	56	27	17	10
23	Cyprus	63	41	43	105	162	157
40	Russia	47	1,641	3,375	2,500	1,127	955
10	San Marino	28	36	26	55	53	37
28	Serbia	25	140	121	221	268	311
	Others	5,456	1,683	1,110	11,637	8,847	10,257
	Total	400,037	390,800	355,000	321,000	350,000	340,000

17	Europe	338,383	328,246	289,356	260,000	304,447	302,083
	% Europe	84.6	84.0	81.5	81.0	87.0	88.8

Summary: No doubt the Ateca SUV will be a success for SEAT and maybe even help the brand to become profitable. It seems to need a more clearly defined identity from my perspective. In most markets above you can see that SEAT relies too heavily on Europe, and even there needs to start cracking the Top 10 more often.

The SEAT León gets photographed everywhere, just like a Hollywood actress