Suzuki Spain Stays Course Amid Political Turmoil

MADRID – Suzuki Motor Iberica, the Spanish subsidiary of Japanese automaker Suzuki, expects to sell about 6,000 cars in the country this year, a 59% surge over 2015 sales but short of the 7,500 units forecasted a year ago.

Despite a minuscule share of the market, Suzuki is far outperforming its Spanish competitors. Sales through the year’s first 10 months were up 69.8% from like-2015, while the overall market was up 10.8%, according to WardsAuto data.

General Manager Juan Lopez is heartened by Suzuki’s share of the market, which is expected to finish 2016 at 0.54% compared with 0.35% in 2015.

Lopez has set a 2017 target of 7,800 car sales. That would be a 30% improvement over the projected 2016 and would raise the Japanese brand’s market share to 0.67% in a Spanish market with total sales projected at 1.16 million units.

Lopez says Suzuki sales have defied an overall slump in commercial activity owing to the country having gone nine months without a formal government in place.

After the regular general elections of December 2015 the various political parties could not agree on which of them would take control of the government. That forced new elections in June, and another three months of discussions among the parties left the government in the hands of a minority.

Additionally, the eighth version of the government’s cash-for-clunkers scheme expired in July. The program was meant to stimulate sales by offering subsidies for purchases of new cars that would replace older vehicles with higher emissions.

The Suzuki Vitara is the automaker’s most-popular model in Spain, capturing a 60% of SMI sales in the market. “We and our dealer network are satisfied with the record increase of our sales in 2016, despite (the fact) it could be even bigger,” Lopez says.

The Suzuki subsidiary’s full-year 2016 estimate of Spanish car and all-wheel-drive-vehicle sales is 1.1 million.

To reach those goals, SMI’s weapons include Suzuki’s latest models, such as the refreshed S-cross all-wheel-drive CUV, 70% of which are powered by gasoline engines. Buyers are waiting several months to receive their vehicles.

Also being introduced in Spain next year are the Swift, Swift Sport and Ignis subcompact.

In Europe, Suzuki hopes to finish the year with 232,000 sales, up 16.6% from 2015. The automaker’s target for the region is 300,000 vehicles sold in 2019.