Renault looks to new launches to stem car sales fall
French car maker Renault posted a decline of almost 7% in first-half vehicle sales amid a global car slowdown but said a forthcoming product offensive would begin to help soften the blow in key markets.
Sales fell to 1.94 million light vehicles in January to June from 2.08 million a year earlier, the company said. The fall was outpaced by a fall of over 7% in the global market, it added.
The sales announcement comes amid gathering gloom for the global car industry, with major markets in decline and trade barriers looming. It also comes a day after domestic rival PSA -- the maker of Peugeot, Opel, and Citroen — recorded a slump of almost 13% in deliveries.
“Renault maintained its market share in the first half of the year in a market that was in sharp decline,” the car maker said, adding that it had held its ground with “no new products”.
The rollout of a new Clio mini will help lift sales in the second half, sales chief Olivier Murguet told reporters, bolstered by an updated Zoe electric car. Global sales of battery-powered models rose almost 43% in the first half.
While the core Renault brand’s sales fell 11.5% in the first half, lower-cost brands showed gains, with Dacia up 4.5% and the Russian Lada marque advancing 6.8%.
Group sales were flat in a declining European market but down 27.7% in the sales region spanning Africa, the Middle East and India.
That performance was largely as a result of Renault’s 2018 withdrawal from Iran -- under the threat of US sanctions.
Deliveries fell over 5% in the Eurasia region including Russia, and almost 4% in the Americas, where Renault sees the Brazilian market rebounding 8% this year.
The global market will show a new decline of about 3% this year, Renault said, with Russia down a further 2% to 3% and Europe stable, assuming that a hard Brexit is averted.
Renault is scheduled to publish full first-half results next week. Shares in Renault have fallen about 25% in the past year.
In May, Fiat Chrysler made a merger proposal to Renault but the Italian-American carmaker subsequently said the conditions were not right to go ahead.
