Peugeot least affected by a sharp drop in PSA sales

Groupe PSA has announced its 2020 sales figures. Worldwide, the group sold 27.8 percent fewer cars. Peugeot is relatively the best, at Opel it looks significantly less rosy.

For the last time, the sales figures of Peugeot, Citroën, DS and Opel have been announced under the PSA name. The brands, which will fall under the newly formed Stellantis concern this year, all had to deal with a sharp drop in sales in 2020. Not a big surprise, but it is still quite a blow. Peugeot gets away with it best of the four brands. That saw sales worldwide fall by 23 percent to 1,118,912 cars. In Europe, the decrease of 24 percent to 907,048 cars was just a bit sharper.

Citroën fared slightly less well, with a sales decrease of 27.5 percent to 717,190 cars. In Europe, the main market for all PSA brands, the decline was 27.9 percent and sold just under 600,000 cars. The DS, which was detached from Citroën, also had a tough time, as worldwide sales of new cars fell 29.5 percent and the total number came to 43,686. 39,481 of them were registered in Europe, a decrease of 29.3 percent. The hardest blow, however, falls at Opel / Vauxhall. That records a worldwide sales decline of no less than 35 percent. In 2020 it sold 632,687 cars, compared to almost 1 million in 2019. In Europe, Opel / Vauxhall lost 38.3 percent and sold 577,518 cars.

Compensatory markets

While some brands have already shown that the sales declines in Europe and other Western markets are sometimes quite compensated in, for example, Asia, that is a bit disappointing at PSA. The only real boost is how the brands fared in their second most important market after Europe; the Middle East and Africa. There, sales across all brands increased 20 percent in 2020 and sold 197,119 cars. Most of them, 89,534 units, came from Peugeot. However, in Latin America, PSA’s third market, a decrease of 29.7 percent was noticeable, and in China (where various brands were able to take the biggest blows) it turned out very badly with a sales decline of no less than 57.7 percent. for PSA.

Recovery

Groupe PSA is seeing clear signs of recovery despite the tough year that has passed. For example, the European market has shown growth again since the fourth quarter, 40 percent more compared to the first half year. Sales have also picked up in China. There, the French group sold comparable numbers again last December to the year before. In Latin America it seems to take a little longer in terms of absolute numbers, but a bonus is that PSA can acquire a slightly larger market share there in the last quarter; 2.5 percent compared to 2.3 percent in 2019.