Mitsubishi Motors sales in the 34 countries it calls Europe fell 7% year on year to 162,495 in 2016, a reasonable decrease “as planned”, according to the automaker.
The company said 2016 was “a consolidation year” though sales of the fifth generation L200 launched in 2015 rose 11% to 24,759 in the new model’s first full year.
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The pickup and SUVs took a 77% share of the automaker’s total sales.
“Against the evolution of the European market where SUV sales keep growing, this performance vindicates MMC’s strategy to become a (near) pure SUV player,” Mitsubishi Motors Europe (MME) said.
The company noted the petrol and diesel versions of the Outlander, updated last year, were no longer in the shadow of the PHEV plug-in sibling, rising 41% to 30,290 units.
“Fluctuating national tax incentive schemes” actually depressed PHEV sales 31% to 21,446 but it was still the second best-selling car overall in EV-friendly Norway and saw gains in Iceland (+ 60%), Spain (+ 47%) and Portugal (+ 27%).
The Outlander and the all-electric i-MiEV accounted for 14% of MME Europe sales last year.
MME said supply constraints meant ASX sales fell 15% to 40,074.
The Outlander remained the most popular Mitsubishi with a sales dip of 1% to 51,736 units of which 21,446 were PHEVs.
Germany was the top market with 39,089 sales (+ 9%) followed by the UK (26,876; -15 %) and Israel, which MME handles although it is not on the continent (18,232; +15%).
