Revealed: World's best-selling 50 cars in first-half 2018

Global vehicle sales are on the upswing and the trend has continued to in the first half of the year (January-June 2018).  As per the  latest findings from 57 markets by market intelligence provider JATO Dynamics, vehicle sales have grown in six of the global Top 10 markets, and within them India has recorded the highest growth of 18 percent. 

As per the 57-market study, a total of 44 million units were sold in H1 2018, up 3.6 percent year on year. Of the top 50 models sold in the first half (January-June) of 2018, the Indian motorist has access to 21 models, which have seen a global surge in sales.

The Ford F-Series tops the list with 534,027 units (+3%) sold in the first half, followed by the Toyota Corolla with 478,122 units (+1%), Volkswagen Golf 431,836 units (+1%), Honda Civic 412,664 units (+6%) and Toyota RAV4 with 395,816 units (+7%).

Interestingly, of the top 50 models being sold in the global market, Volkswagen with seven of its models tops the list, followed by Toyota (6 models), Ford (5 models), Honda (5 models) and luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz and Nissan with three models each.  

In terms of vehicle demand, SUVs now account for around 37 percent of total PV sales – in H1 2018, around 15 million SUVs were sold, up 14 percent YoY. The volumes grew in 10 of the 11 key regions, with double-digit growth in 8, and a drop of 4 percent in Japan. According to JATO, SUVs continue to be popular in the USA, China, Canada and Russia, but are still lagging behind other segments in Latin America, Japan and India. Which means it’s good news for automakers as it shows that SUVs still have growth potential in these key markets.

The findings indicate that compact cars have remained the second popular choice followed by SUVs in the segment rankings, but the volumes came down by 4 percent to 7.1 million units. The timid growth posted in China (+0.4%) wasn’t enough to offset the declines coming from Europe (-5%) and USA (-8%). China is still their biggest market in both volume and market share. The subcompacts remained the most popular cars in Latin America and India, but their volume increased by only 2 percent to 5.4 million units.

Meanwhile, MPVs continued to lose ground as their sales volume fell by 13 percent to 3.13 million units. Their demand shrank in China (-19%) and Europe (-23%), their biggest markets. MPVs are still popular in Japan and Asia-Pacific, with a double-digit market share. In contrast, they are a rarity in Russia and Latin America.

Of the 50 best-selling models, nearly 42 percent or 21 of them are currently sold in the Indian market (indicated in red). 

For the Japense carmaker Suzuki, the Swift was the only model that featured among the top best-selling models. Interestingly, for Suzuki, India leads the charts with almost 59 percent of Swift sales coming from the domestic market. Among the other cars in the list sales from India which contributed a significant portion of total global sales are the Ford Ecosport (18%), Jeep Compass (5%), Honda Jazz (5%) and Volkswagen Polo (3%). 

Also read: India set to surpass Japan as world’s No. 3 auto market by 2021