Nine years after the last Ibiza, Seat finally decided to revive his best-seller. This city-dweller arrives after the Leon and Ateca who laid the foundations for a successful repositioning of the brand of Spanish origin. Seat hopes to boost its sales that have reached a false flat in the past two years.
Everyone was waiting for him ... The new Seat Ibiza has just been presented in Barcelona. One of the emblematic models of the Spanish brand is finally renewed nine years after the launch of the previous generation, an exceptionally long longevity, despite its two restylages.
For Seat, this launch is crucial since it must allow it to revive on a segment with very high volumes. With 5.4 million units sold since 1984, Ibiza remains the best-seller of Seat. In spite of its great age, it passed to 152,100 units in 2016, a short distance from the 165,700 Seat Leon, a model more recent (2012). It is impossible to miss this new generation because Seat wants to offer its former customers the opportunity to renew their car while staying in the universe Ibiza. It is for these reasons that the Seat Ibiza has remained very faithful to its original silhouette. It retains however the new codes acquired by the last Leon and the Ateca (first SUV of the brand launched in 2016). New edges on the front hood and sides for more body, more modernity, not forgetting the new signature signature very characteristic.
A less Hispanizing brand
New lines, new style, new seal, consumers approve the new more sporty and less Hispanizing claw of Seat. Seat now assumes that all the mechanics are purely from its German parent company to make it a true qualitative argument. Because Seat no longer wants to be the entry-level brand of the Volkswagen constellation. Without competing with its Premium sisters, the Spanish brand wants to carve a new identity in the very disputed universe of brands.
The new Ibiza must thus allow Seat to confirm the repositioning of the Spanish brand while amplifying its success in the lower segments at high volumes. It happens a few months before the arrival of the new Volkswagen Polo, but that should remain a few inches longer, history to distinguish the two models.
The repositioning of Seat enabled the company to emerge from the red for the first time in 2015. Net profit had amounted to a small 6 million euros, which was already a giant leap for the automotive 'Here subscribes to the accounts in the red.
Sales that stagnate ...
Seat now wants to accelerate, because if the repositioning is successful, sales have reached a false flat. Admittedly, with 410,200 units in 2016, we are far from the 321,000 registrations of 2012. But sales increased by only 2.4% in 2015 and by 2.6% in 2016. Seat even saw its market share In Europe by 2016 from 2.4% to 2.3%. Acceleration could happen in 2017 with the first full year of commercialization of the Ateca, and in 2018, Seat will rely on the first full year of the new Ibiza.
But volumes could also accelerate with the arrival, probably before the end of the year, of an SUV on Ibiza base, that is to say on segment B, the most dynamic segment in Europe with Renault Captur, Peugeot 2008. Luca de Meo, CEO of Seat, hopes to take the brand out of its single-product strategy by claiming legitimacy in other segments than city-dwellers.
Thanks to TRIBUNAL
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