Suzuki Aiming to Shed Bit Player’s Role in Spain

MADRID – Suzuki has ambitious plans to make a comeback in Spain, banking on new models and an improving economy to grow its dwindling share of the market.

According to ACEA, the European automakers’ association, the Japanese company registered 130,319 vehicles in Europe from January through October, up 9.8% from the same period of 2013.

Suzuki has fared poorly in Spain, however, since the financial crisis of 2008. Sales peaked in 2007 at 22,051 and have declined steadily, with deliveries in 2014 expected to fall 15% from the prior year to only about 2,700, for a minuscule 0.4% market share.

Some analysts also attribute Suzuki’s woes to the automaker’s focus on motor sports, a luxury in a time of economic difficulties.

But Juan Lopez, general sales and marketing manager for Suzuki’s Spanish subsidiary, recently told media he believes sales will jump nearly 50%, to 4,000 units, in 2015.

The automaker launched its new-product offensive last year with its S-Cross range of all-wheel-drive CUVs, but they have not been well-received. The 5-door Celerio, powered by a 0.8L 3-cyl. diesel engine making 51 hp and targeted at the low end of the A-segment of the market, arrives in a few weeks.

The key model for Suzuki could be the new Vitara compact CUV, exhibited in October at the Paris auto show and due in Spain in February. The fourth-generation Vitara, smaller than the SX4 S-Cross, will be a volume model and the likely flagship of the Japanese brand.

Lopez says several more new models will be introduced in Spain by 2017: a B-segment car bigger than the current Swift subcompact, a city car derived from the Celerio, a Swift replacement with a lower body than today’s Swift and a possible A-segment SUV.

Lopez hopes the new products, coupled with the Spanish government’s PIVE incentive program designed to spur sales of safer, more-efficient vehicles, will boost Suzuki’s recovery in the country.

In the current version of the PIVE program, buyers who replace a car at least 10 years old with a new model receive a €2,000 ($2,470) subsidy paid in equal shares by the government and the automaker, which in turn charges 40% of its share to the auto dealer that makes the sale.

Lopez forecasts sales of nearly 1 million light vehicles in Spain in 2015. Deliveries for the first 10 months of this year totaled 810,631, up 19.8% from year-ago, according to WardsAuto data.