SEAT’s global sales went up by 7% from January to April 2019 compared to the same period the previous year. For the first time, SEAT sold over 200,000 cars, more specifically, 202,600, in the first four months of a year. From January to April 2018, SEAT delivered 189,300 cars, which was the prior best result until this year.
SEAT sold 51,000 vehicles last April, which is 1.8% better than the 2018 result. It was also the best month of April, exceeding the figure of 50,100 posted one year ago.
Furthermore, sales of the new CUPRA brand continue to break records. In the first four months of the year, CUPRA sold 7,900 cars, which is 82.3% more than in the same period in 2018.
SEAT Vice-president for Sales and Marketing and CUPRA CEO Wayne Griffiths highlighted that “we are showing solid growth in the first four months of the year in a challenging economic environment and increasing our market share, especially in the major European countries. We are confident we will maintain this positive trend throughout the rest of the year, thanks to the SUV range which now accounts for over 40% of our global sales. CUPRA has made a significant contribution to our success with a strong performance by both the newly launched CUPRA Ateca as well as Leon CUPRA.”
In the first four months of 2019, Germany, Algeria and the United Kingdom are the three countries that posted the highest volume growth compared to the same period the year before. Spain is SEAT’s principal market in this period and rose by 4.2% to a total of 40,900 cars sold. SEAT is the leading brand in Spain and the Leon is the most widely sold model. Germany (40,100; +13.4%) and the UK (25,500; +7.6%) follow Spain, while France and Italy, two key countries in SEAT’s growth strategy in Europe, are making double-digit progress with 11,400 (+14.6%) and 9,600 (+14.4%) vehicles sold, respectively.
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SEAT sales also went up in Austria (8,000; +2.5%), in Switzerland (4,600; +13.9%), the Netherlands (4,100; +22.3%), Sweden (2,700; +14.1%) and Denmark (2,200; +28.4%), as well as in Algeria, which continues to show a strong upward trend with a figure of close to 12,000 car deliveries (11,900; +18.7%).
Financial results also on the rise
The increase in sales and the positive effect of selling vehicles with a higher contribution margin enabled SEAT’s operating profit to grow to the record figure of 89 million euros in the first quarter of 2019, which is 5.5% more than in the same period of 2018 (85 million euros). Moreover, SEAT’s turnover went up for the first time above 3 billion euros (3.053 billion) in January-March 2019, which is 9.7% more than in the first three months of last year (2.782 billion euros).
