PARIS: The French automaker Renault’s sales have increased 3.2 per cent in 2014 owing to the low-cost Duster sport utility vehicle.
Sales data released by Renault on Monday showed that overall its sales grew by 3.2 percent last year, trailing the 3.5 percent expansion of the global auto market.
However, the data also show that the company’s bet on the low-cost segment is paying off, accounting for three out of five of the group’s top-selling models and nearly a third of overall sales of 2.7 million vehicles last year.
Renault built up its Romanian subsidiary Dacia in the 2000s as a budget brand, but sells the vehicles under its own emblem in a number of countries. In fact more Dusters were delivered as Renaults than Dacias in 2014, and overall accounted for nearly 15 percent of total sales.
Its low-cost focus helped Renault fare better than many competitors in slumping emerging markets, but its non-European sales fell 5.9 percent.
“Affected by the economic and financial crises on its main emerging markets, the Group held firm and posted record market share in Brazil (7.1 percent) and Russia (7.9 percent), its second and third largest markets,” the company said.
In Europe, Renault said it increased its market share by 0.6 points to 10 percent as its volumes rose by 12.5 percent, double the market growth. Renault’s shares drifted up 0.06 percent to 62.98 euros in morning trading while Paris’s CAC 40 index was up 0.12 percent overall to 4384.75 points.
