The studious folks over at Jato Dynamics have released their analysis of global automotive sales for 2018, revealing the 25 best-selling vehicles in the world.
The firm’s analysis of the world’s 54 top markets revealed that some 86 million vehicles were sold last year.
According to Jato, 2018 proved a “somewhat challenging” year for the global car market, as sales fell for the first time since 2009. Still, strong results in India, Brazil, Russia and South East Asia offset stalling sales in Europe, China and the United States. Interestingly, India became the world’s fourth largest car market, outselling Germany in 2018.
SUVs once again drove sales in the global market, with a record 29,77 million units sold last year. High demand for SUVs came at the expense of traditional cars, with MPVs posting the largest drop of the bunch, where volume was down 14 percent to six million units. Still, Jato said 2018 was a good year for bakkies, which outsold city cars, as global volume totalled 5,2 million units, up five percent on 2017.
So, which were the best-selling vehicles for the year? Well, Jato’s figures suggest Ford’s F-Series maintained its position at very top, where it was the only contender to register more than a million sales.
The Toyota Corolla likewise held steady in second, but the Volkswagen Golf fell from third in 2017 to seventh in 2018, registering the biggest drop in the global top 10 (partly due to the decline of diesel in Europe and perhaps also because some buyers are holding out for the eighth-generation model). The Honda Civic instead occupied third, while the Toyota RAV4 grabbed fourth (and the title of the world’s best-selling SUV) ahead of the fifth-placed Nissan X-Trail.
Volkswagen’s Polo, which was the second-best-selling passenger vehicle in South Africa behind the Polo Vivo in 2018, took 14th place (up five from 2017), while the Ford Kuga fell five spots to 18th. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, meanwhile, just made it onto the list in 24th.
Check out the infographic below to see the rest of the top 25 (with total brand sales on the left and model sales on the right)…
