UK Saab sales Sept 2008 and Snippets
Saab is having a bad year.
I absolutely love the 2008 Saab 9-3. It’s an improved car in so many ways compared to the previous generation, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that the buying public haven’t taken to it. Sales are way down in the US (where there’s a number of factors at play), they’re down by less in Sweden, and they took an absolute caning last month in the UK.
Saab sold 2,186 vehicles in the UK last month, which was a massive 47% drop from the 4,095 sold in the same month last year.
Forty Seven Percent.
The whole industry is down, of course, but the total market was down only 21%.
Sales were down for every company in the US last month, but there were a handful of companies that recorded sales increases in the UK. Amazingly, Hummer were one of them. As were Audi, Smart, Jaguar and MG. Yes, MG. They found 9 MG’s to sell last month, as opposed to 1 in the same month last year.
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And in something totally unrelated to sales, there’s been a fair bit of coverage in the last few days of the Sony-Saab hookup in the 9-X Air.
Connected via Bluetooth, the Xperia X1 is able to control ambient lighting, front and rear seat settings, lock the car, open the trunk and even turn on your signal lights as well as headlamps. Take that, iPhone!
And there’s even a groovy picture. Click.
Thanks, Alex!
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Saab were down in Europe overall, too, though the GM Europe press release doesn’t say how much by, which is part of the gentle art of press releases.
I’m sure the corks are popping in GM Europe’s Cadillac offices, though:
Saab sold 53,805 cars in Europe from January-September 2008. Cadillac sales grew by 3.1 percent to 3,746 units compared to 2007 and HUMMER volume was up 9.5 percent to 1,781 units.
Remember, that’s 3,746 vehicles for all of Europe. I’d love to see the marketing-doller-per-vehicle calculations for that one.
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The Viggens are having a bad 12 months or so. I crashed mine, WooDz is selling his, Richo’s exposing his to a new Teutonic mistress and now there’s another one for sale.
My T-shirt partner and good friend Ivan in Hungary is selling his in order to get some money in for future family stuff. You know, mature grown-up stuff that doesn’t involve fast irresponsible cars.
I hope it goes well, mate, and if any of you are in the vicinity then you should check it out as it’s one superhot mama!!
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More from this category
- US Sales Data - October 2008
- Swedish Saab sales - October 2008
- Some slightly better (and worse) news for Saab
- Saab 9-X Air quick video
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Some of those anomalous rises do have logic, though.
They didn’t “find” 9 MGs, they started building ‘em again!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7536527.stm
(Where did last year’s come from…?)
As for Hummer, they only started officially importing them in October last year - so last September’s would have been LHD personal imports.
Jag are probably still in the post-launch glow from the XF - as opposed to last year’s inability to shift the S-type for love or money.
Audi? Gawd knows. There’s some strange folk out there…
The ‘08 is definatley a better car, but it wasn’t better enough. Saab did this with the 9-5 too. You can facelift the car, add a few features and up the quality a tad. You can even add XWD. It’s still not going to win you sales, it’s only going to buy you some time.
Saab needs to be having an all new car every five years, or maybe a bit longer, but not much. Look at every other premium brand. BMW, Merc, Audi, they all keep a product around for about five or six years, then replace it with something new. For some examples: e46 BMW 3-series… slightly over 5 years. The B6 and B7 Audi A4s lasted 7 years, and the difference between those two is MUCH greater than the difference between the 07 and 08 9-3’s… as in totally new body, new interior, new engine choices. They only shared their frames.
Honestly, I don’t know if getting out cars this fast is realistic for Saab due to the way GM is…. “funding”….. them. Honestly, I think Saab does a pretty good job with what they have to work with… but sadly, just being able to do that can’t get success in the extremely competitive market today. I really like Saabs, but the company needs to step up their game if they want to compete, and dare I say it, still see the light of day in 10 years. Obviously, they’ll need the support of GM to do that.
-Rogan
Ivan,
Love the wheels on the Viggen. Good look you’ve got there.
Best,
~Peter
Yes the -08 is a good car, and for what it’s worth I found it more comfortable and a more engaging drive than the A4 or C class, but in real terms, it is too familiar, too long in the tooth and too behind the game in terms of info systems (which the 9-x seems to be addressing).
I’m not surprised sales have fallen, sometimes a facelift can just highlight the wrinkles on what remains?
the figures are easy to explain in the uk
last year dealers were self registering cars en masse and there were hundreds of cars sitting on dealer forecourts, they were REGISTERED cars not SOLD cars
this year UK dealers have throttled back and many dealers have shut down because of it
hence registrations are down, it took a long time to shift all those cars from forecourts
the economy slowdown in the UK really hit in september too
Well, when you announce something new that is coming and after more than a year is still not available in showrooms, any customers (existing or new) will simply get disillusioned. Take a look at many other car makers that stretch their models for 10 years or more and increase sales through face lift after face lift. The killer for Saab has been the poor and total mishandling of the supply of the XWD options. We’ve heard first in early 07 then a huge release event due to the 60th Anniversary in the middle of last year. Today, more than 12 months later and the highly heralded XWD options are not available yet to buy. Unforgivable to say the least. Also, the deliveries of all 08 models too were very poorly timed and managed. How many horror stories around the world we knew of deliveries taken in excess of 3 months for standard 08 models and the frustrations to buyers ??? Add to that the pitfalls of the dealer network and clearly, we have a huge supply, distribution and sales annihilation. Are we really all of us so surprised that sales have fallen so badly ??? Not in my books.
I think the problem with the 08 facelift was that they didn’t do nearly as much to the interior so the car comes across as looking flashy and new on the outside but once you sit in it it’s the same old 9-3SS I wish they had spend just a bit less money on the exterior and had instead invested it into an Audi or even new CTS-quality interior. People care much less about the exterior looks than they do about how the car feels once you’re sitting in it, and even after the 2007 refresh the 9-3SS still reeks of “cheap”.