Alpine Brand Deliveries: 2025-26 (Q1)

Renault has resurrected the Alpine brand designed to lift Renault's image as sporty and fun. It seems to be working. From the A110 coupé, the A290 electric hot hatch to the new A390 electric crossover. 

Q1 deliveries were up 55% on 2025. Of those, the A290 reached 2,452 units (75% of the total). The A110 545 sales (17%) and the new A390 249 (8%).

Alpine has avoided the outright two seater convertible sports car that is currently not particularly in favour. That said, the A110 is a two seater sports car but with a hard top which makes it a coupé. Does that make a difference? Not sure it does. 

Data & photo source: Renault Group (A290 & A390 shown).

Renault Brand Car/LCV Deliveries: 2025-26 (Q1)

Renault brand sales are cruising along, up 2% for Q1. Not having a presence in China helps with that as foreign brands are increasingly marginalised there. 

The Clio is the leading model with 77,900 YTD, up 5%. The new R4 and R5 models are going well too. 

Data & photo source: Renault Group (Clio & R4).

Regional. This includes all brands in the Renault Group. In this setting deliveries are down 3%. Europe has 71% share and it being down 4% was the reason for the drop. Still, in these challenging times, that seems a decent result as many others are doing much worse than that. 

EAME (Eurasia, Africa & the Middle East) broke even with Asia/Pacific up 4%. I don't know what countries are covered by 'Others'. 

Albania Car Sales : 2026 (Jan-Mar)

Sometimes things just don't add up, yet it's true. The Albanian car market in 2026 is unprecedented in an extreme way but more on that in a moment. Most new cars sold here are not through Albanian dealers but imported through non-official channels rather than traditional local dealership networks.

Hyundai was the leading brand for 2020 and 2021, then VW took over for three years. BYD's first full year in Albania was in 2024, managing 5th place with 7% market share. 

In 2025, it rocketed to first place with 34% share and so far this year has over 60% of the registrations.  

It's hard to understand how that can happen in what is, by my understanding, an open market. Chinese penetration is now overwhelming and growing. Legacy car brands are for the most part getting battered. 

Data source: Dpshtrr. Photos: BYD.