PSA chief executive Jean-Martin Folz told Reuters in Germany this week that he is optimistic that PSA would regain market share as its model line-up is renewed.
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At the moment the average of the model line-up is 4.5 years, but by 2008 this will have fallen to 3.3 years, said Folz. He added that this is the best hope the company has of increasing market share in Europe.
Unit sales were down 2.7% in Europe in 2005 – PSA’s market share slipped to 14.3% from 14.6%.
As a result of the contraction in sales, particularly in the last quarter of the year, PSA’s European passenger car production was down 100,000 units year on year at 2.22m units, according to data from JD Power-LMC.
PSA’s new production strategy is in place with the Peugeot and Citroen brands sharing production facilities. “They are now trying to get stability in overall production,” said JD Power-LMC head of European forecasting Arthur Maher.
A major element of the production strategy is that each brand should have a model at a peak in its product cycle, with the sister model from the other brand peaking at a different time. However, at the moment there are big variations in the production volumes of different models from one year to the next.
Production of the Peugeot 206, 307 and Citroen C3 were all down over 100,000 units on a year earlier. There were similar gains on other models, including the Citroen C4 and Peugeot 407, as well as the Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107, which went into production during 2005 at PSA’s joint venture plant with Toyota in Kolin, Czech Republic.
But PSA’s new 1007 – a small city hatchback with unique electric sliding front doors has flopped. Just 70,000 units were produced last year after PSA had planned for around 130,000.
Hopes for this year are pinned on the all-new 207. PSA is aiming to sell 500,000 units.
