New car sales in 2020: Mitsubishi, Hyundai and others lose ground in falling market

Mitsubishi's sales are down nearly 40 percent this year, and its best-selling Triton is struggling to break new ground.

It's been a tough year for new car sales. Even before the coronavirus pandemic put new car buying on hold, auto brands and dealers were facing the challenge of maintaining the record pace of recent years.

It's not all bad news, Australia is certainly doing better than Europe and the US, where social distancing laws have nearly brought sales to a halt. But despite government incentives to try to get people back into car parks, year-to-date sales fell 23.9% across the industry.

However, for some brands, this period was worse. Cars Guide analyzed the latest new car sales data from the Federal Chamber of the Automotive Industry to see which brands had the hardest time in 2020. Using the industry's 23.9% as a benchmark, these six brands are underperforming. .

For the benefit of consumers, we have focused on mainstream and mainstream brands, with the exception of Alpine (down 92.3%), Jaguar (down 40.1%) and Alfa Romeo (down 38.9%).

Citroen - minus 55.3%

Citroen has only sold 22 C5 Aircrosses this year.

The French brand has always struggled in Australia, but 2020 has been a particularly tough year. Most recently, in October 2019, the brand went through another "rebuild" in an attempt to attract more customers to its new line of SUVs.

Unfortunately, the loss of the Berlingo and Dispatch commercial vans took a toll on sales. Add to that the cool sales reception of the C3 Aircross (30 sold this year) and C5 Aircross (22 sold in total) and that means the brand managed to sell just 76 vehicles in five months in '2020.

In comparison, Kia sold 106 Optimas during the same period, despite a sharp decline in sales of midsize sedans and limited marketing efforts associated with this model.

Fiat down 49.8%

Fiat sales have nearly halved in 2020 as both the 500 and 500X fail to find buyers as they mature.

We have already addressed the current problems of the Italian brand before, but it is simply impossible to avoid it again. Sales have almost halved in 2020 as both the 500 and 500X fail to find buyers as they mature.

The brand's only other model, the Abarth 124 Spider, also has limited appeal, but it still managed to find 36 new owners, meaning it's down just 10 percent since the start of the year.

With the brand yet to publicly announce a next-generation 500 and sister brand Jeep has dropped the Renegade, which is the 500X's twin, the future of the iconic Italian brand looks uncertain.

Renault - a decrease of 40.2%

Koleos sales fell 52.4% compared to 2019.

This is a bad year for French brands since Renault has joined Citroen in a street fight.

Globally, the brand is struggling and has just embarked on a major reorganization in an attempt to correct course, but domestically, Renault has failed to attract Australian buyers.

With fewer than 2000 cars sold in five months, that's a tough start to the year, even for a relatively small player like Renault. But when you look at the decline in sales of its key models - the Captur - 82.7%, the Clio - 92.7%, the Koleos - 52.4%, and even the Kangoo commercial van - 47% - it becomes hard for Francophiles to read.

Mitsubishi — decrease by 39.2%

ASX sales fell 35.4% compared to 2019.

On a positive note, the Japanese company is still the fourth best-selling brand in the country, having sold over 21,000 units despite the steep decline.

But there's no escape: It's been a tough year for Mitsubishi, with sales dropping nearly 40 percent. And no big deal, every model in the lineup has seen double-digit declines, including the popular Triton ute (down 32.2% for 4×4 variants) and the small SUV ASX (down 35.4%).

Hyundai - 34% decrease

The departure of the Accent city car also left a hole in the lineup that the Venue kids' SUV couldn't fill.

Like Mitsubishi, the South Korean brand is doing well when you look at its sales chart position, third behind Toyota and Mazda. But like Mitsubishi, Hyundai's key models suffered heavy losses.

The i30 was down 28.1%, the Tucson down 26.9% and the Santa Fe down 24%, all of the brand's key volumetric models.

The departure of the Accent city car also left a hole in the lineup that the Venue children's SUV could not fill; by May 2019, Hyundai had sold 5480 Accents, but Venue had only sold 1333 vehicles since the start of the year.

On a positive note for Hyundai, its electrified Ioniq lineup appears to be finding more buyers, in fact up 1.8% from sales in 2019, which is important given the current state of the market.