11:22 am, July 26, 2013
FOLLOWING a 34 per cent growth in sales during the first half of the year, Suzuki has jumped into the UK Top 20 ahead of Volvo and Mazda.
The growth, which includes more than 17,000 cars sold and a 1.5 per cent market share, has also pushed Suzuki GB to number one in Europe ahead of Russia and Germany with the best sales and biggest market share.
The company is now gearing up for further growth in sales with the arrival of the new S-Cross in September, which Suzuki believes will help them gain traction in the fleet market, especially Motability.
Of the 30,000 cars Suzuki sold last year, only 2,000 were fleet sales, but this is set to change. The company expects business sales to grow to 5,000 a year over the next four years as the company increases its focus on corporate sales.
So far, the brand has already increased the number of cars sold through Motability to 900 up from 300 last year.
The first priority has been to build closer links with CAP and Glass’s to establish residual values for new models ahead of launch.
National corporate sales and remarketing manager, Andrew Wale, said: ‘The work we are doing on residual values for fleet will benefit retail customers too because it will mean lower monthly payments. I’m not under any pressure to grow sales other than organically.’
Wale plans to ‘ease dealers into fleet sales’ and believes the idea of business centres, notably prestige brands, doesn’t work. Instead, 10 Suzuki dealers will be used to focus on business sales and if other dealers want to be involved, Suzuki will support them.
‘They are too expensive to run and 80 per cent of business sales are made through only six or seven dealers. It’s more about product, pricing and servicing than worrying about the colour of the floor tiles.’
