After a very good month of August, Citroën's performance was average in France in September. In a market up by 5.5%, the brand's sales fell by 10.1% for a market share of 8.9% in passenger cars and 9.6% in the PC+LCV market as a whole.
In its rather gloomy results, due to the shortage of components but also to a change of carrier which is causing discord in deliveries, there is still some good news that should be highlighted.
The first of these is the C5 x which achieved, in September, the best month since its launch with 396 units sold, 55% of which were in the rechargeable hybrid version. Over the first nine months of the year, Citroën's large sedan received 2,951 orders, the vast majority of which (83.5%) are for the highest Shine and Shine Pack finishes. The C5 x is the leader in sedans and hybrid station wagons in its segment and third in its segment for all engines combined.
The C5 Aircross for its part seems to take advantage of its restyling to display good performance in the controls. Indeed, in September alone, Citroën's large SUV received 1,902 orders, of which nearly 66% were for the highest finishes. 2,283 C5 Aircross were delivered in September, making it the brand's second best seller with 13.9% of volumes. Note that 37% of deliveries concern the plug-in hybrid version.
As for the C3, it accounts for 44.1% of the brand's volumes and saw its sales decrease by 17.1%. The C3 ELLE, just launched, already represents nearly 10% of the orders recorded in September.
"The undeniable success of the LCV range combined with the fine performance of the C5 X, C3, C5 Aircross and C4 have enabled Citroën to achieve a market share of 10.4% since the start of the year, and to consolidate its place, despite customer deliveries penalized by a tense transport situation," says Jérôme Gautier, Director of Citroën France. This tense situation in the field of transport is explained by a change of carrier made in July by Stellantis, from Gefco to CAT VM and which turned into a fiasco with delays in the delivery of registered but "lost" cars. A difficult situation which comes on top of the disturbances linked to the shortage of components and which has a direct impact on the volume of sales. However, orders are very good for Citroën, which had a very good month of September, particularly among individuals, where Citroën increased sharply in September both in volume and in proportion to total orders.