Strongest Quarter In Ten Years

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 09:36

With 120,000 cars sold in Germany, Opel achieved its best quarterly sales since 1999. At the AMI Leipzig, Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee also found out about the new Opel products.

By Frank Mertens

Struggling to survive, Opel sold 120,000 cars in Germany in the first quarter of this year. "This is the strongest quarter in ten years," said Opel sales manager Michael Klaus at the AMI in Leipzig. This corresponds to an increase of 60 percent compared to the same period last year.

Insignia a big seller

Klaus cites the scrapping bonus as the reason for this positive result on the one hand, but above all the run on the new Opel Insignia. “We have 80,000 orders for the new Insignia across Europe, including 18,000 in Germany alone”. This positive sales of the Insignia should continue in the coming months, as the Opel Insignia Sports Tourer is now also coming onto the market. The station wagon is much more popular than the sedan. "We expect a station wagon share of 70 percent," said Michael Klaus of the Autogazette. Klaus welcomed the increase in the scrapping premium. "It will boost sales again."

As Klaus said, Opel is sticking to its long-term sales targets despite the sales crisis. "We want a double-digit market share." In the first two months of this year, according to the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), with almost 36,000 newly registered vehicles, Opel had a market share of 7.6 percent. Of course, 2009 will not be an easy year because of the overall economic situation, but he is confident because of the new products such as the Insignia, says Klaus.

Tiefensee at the Opel stand

Despite the crisis, a cancellation of the AMI in Leipzig was not an issue for Opel. "The AMI is a public fair and is accordingly important for us," said Klaus. The company is correspondingly present this year too. In addition to the model variants of the Insignia, the Ampera electric car, which is due to hit the German market in 2011, is also on display.

During his visit to the trade fair, Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee (SPD) also found out about the technology of the Ampera, which has a range of 60 kilometers in purely electric driving mode and, in combination with an internal combustion engine, has a range of 500 kilometers. BMW and Fiat, among others, stayed away from the AMI this year.