Top 40 (Most of) Car Sales By Model UK : 2014

When you deal with the car industry, you soon realise how much better many could do in PR. Publicising sales and or production data is at times woefully inadequate. Renault is very open about global sales, perhaps more than any other car maker. It's partner Nissan is quite poor with international data in comparison. BMW and VW Group are quite good but Mercedes Benz is very much the opposite. British companies have always been slack in releasing dat,a but under Tata, JLR is better.

One could argue that commercially sensitive data has to be protected. However, unless it is extremely detailed it won't be giving anything away. What it will provide is public awareness and brand promotion if handled with skill.

Some manufacturers may feel a poor year is bad publicity, but it doesn't have to be. For example if sales are down, put a spin on it. I remember when BMW had to release a poor sales performance during the worldwide downturn, it said the decrease was in line with expectations. If the problem is because of a lull in new model releases, say so. If it due to pulling back on discounting, why not say?

Nissan is a very open UK car brand
when it comes to UK sales, and why not?

As for UK car sales by model, the SMMT do release some but they make a living selling data so understandably won't give out too much. Few manufacturers release anything and I assume there is nothing to stop them except for laziness or paranoia. Nissan and Toyota are the best I can find and Kia are OK. The rest are missing out.

Here are some I have for 2014. It isn't all the models, but the ones I could find with over 10,000 sales. There is a colour code to group models into a region or nation. The top ten sales and their combined percentage are at the bottom of the list.

Rk	Make/Model	Sales
1	Ford Fiesta	131,254
2	Ford Focus	85,140
3	Vauxhall Corsa	81,783
4	VW Golf	73,880
5	Vauxhall Astra	59,689
6	Nissan Qashqai	49,909
7	VW Polo	48,004
8	Audi A3	45,581
9	Fiat 500	44,005
10	Nissan Juke	39,263
11	BMW 3 Series	38,649
12	Mercedes C-Class	31,525
13	Vauxhall Insignia	31,313
14	Toyota Yaris	31,160
15	Vauxhall Zafira Tour	31,092
16	Mercedes E	28,707
17	Hyundai i10	25,030
18	Ford Kuga	24,353
19	Nissan Note	23,309
20	Audi A4	22,728
21	VW Up!	22,461
22	Kia Sportage	21,575
23	BMW 5 Series	21,511
24	Skoda Octavia	20,984
25	Toyota Aygo	20,620
26	VW Passat	19,658
27	Citroen C4 Picasso	19,164
28	Toyota Auris	19,109
29	R Rover Evoque	18,723
30	Ford C-MAX	18,350
31	VW Tiguan	16,954
32	Hyundai ix35	16,890
33	Kia Picanto	15,385
34	Audi A6	15,055
35	Nissan Micra	15,010
36	Suzuki Alto	14,330
37	Ford B-MAX	13,691
38	Jaguar XF	13,646
39	Kia C'eed	13,189
40	Kia Rio	12,231
	Top 10	658,508
	% of Total	27.3
	Total	2,476,435

The Toyota Auris, here in Tourer guise

Data source for the above list: SMMT, Nissan, Toyota and Kia.

Food for thought:
Success is based on good product so letting the public have some data isn't going to change that.