Apart from the lightning success of Tesla and the rapid growth of Chinese manufacturers, there have been no big success stories in the auto industry in the last 20 years. The auto industry faces several challenges that seem to have no end in sight, although there are exceptions to this bleak picture. Dacia is one of them, and now Citroen wants to become one.
Since 2004 and the launch of Logan, Groupe Renault’s budget brand has undergone a major transformation that has seen it become a major player in the European car market and an important part of the French carmaker’s global expansion plans.
In 20 years of work, proper positioning of the brand combined with an efficient strategy has enabled Romanians to achieve extremely good sales results. Last year, Dacia sold more than 650,000 cars in the regions where it operates. If we also look at Dacia’s volume of cars that are strategically sold under the Renault brand in certain markets, the figure of almost 950,000 cars sold is not to be underestimated in the least. With all that, let’s not forget that the Sandero is by far the best-selling car in Europe this year, he reminds Klix.ba.
Despite the clear indicators and evidence of Dacia’s success, in the last 20 years there have been no other car manufacturers that have replicated this formula. Let’s add to this that part of the continuous growth, which is recorded by the French-owned Romanian brand, is now spilling over to larger segments, as Duster is on the verge of entering the “top 10” best-selling models in Europe.
However, Dacia is getting a rival that could repeat this success or rather copy their formula. You guessed it, it’s Citroen, which is the closest of the 15 existing Stellantis brands to such an undertaking, especially as the group aims to reposition itself and play Dacia’s game with affordable cars.
It all started with the unveiling of the fourth generation city model C3, which in its concept has all the attributes of the bestseller Sandero Stepway.
This hatchback was initially introduced in India and Brazil using Stellantis’ Smart Car platform. It is conceived as a “global” car that will appeal to both developing markets (India, Latin America) and developed markets such as Europe. So the C3 is not only conceived with Europe in mind, but with more fuel-efficient emerging markets. This means lower production costs and a lower final price, which is the first and perhaps the most important prerequisite.
This formula has also been applied to the second generation C3 Aircross, which is now a larger, 7-seater B-SUV and relatively cheaper than the previous generation. These two models are part of the C-Cubed plan to make Citroen a more global and affordable car brand.
Also, the newly presented Citroen C5 Aircross Concept should be 95 percent similar to the production version and has Dacia Bigster in its sights. The new C4 will reportedly target the Duster.
For all these models, the big test will be France first, and then Europe. Analysts warn that becoming the “new Dacia” in Europe can be a wise, but also a very risky move.
Until now, Citroen had a specific positioning, which could be said to be somewhere in an undefined environment, so even though they have a much wider range of cars, it should not be surprising that in 10 months of this year they sold 150,000 cars less than Dacia, which has only five models in its range. .
At the expense of history, image and technological progress, the French brand has all the prerequisites to offer better cars to customers than Dacia according to its formula. However, changing the strategy to sell and earn more seems right, unless it is a failure and the customers reject it. Such a problem would probably be the last thing the bosses in France want on their desk.
Source: Klix.ba
Photo: Arhiva Autoblog.rs / Citroen
Source: autoblog.rs
