Belgium / Netherlands Mainstream Brand Comparison 2014

Mitsubishi  is more popular in The Netherlands 

Two near neighbours come together here for this comparison. One may expect car buying decisions to be similar but not so. The size of the passenger car markets is similar with Belgium being 25% larger, creating a ratio of 1:1.25. Any brands under 1.25 are favoured by the Netherlands (orange), and any over that preferred in Belgium (yellow).

The Netherlands has more 'other' cars that are not revealed by brand, many of which may be small, obscure city cars but that is my guess. It doesn't make any difference to the chart below. The Netherlands does seem to put more emphasis on encouraging fuel efficient vehicles than Belgium.

Mitsubishi has a history of car making in the Netherlands and that probably influenced the massive swing in sales that way. The Outlander PHEV seemed to have an even bigger impact though. That said, the fact that VW, SEAT and Ford brands have been made in Belgium in years past seems to had no effect. Having a large French speaking population in Belgium doesn't seem to have much effect either.

Kia and Hyundai are divided between each country in similar extremes. Chevrolet's imbalance is misleading because they sold better in the Netherlands, but once the decision to pull the brand out of Europe was made, they responded more quickly in ending sales.

	Brand	Belgium	Nederland	Ratio
	Mitsubishi	2,239	12,044	0.19
	Seat	6,730	11,013	0.61
	Suzuki	6,027	8,527	0.71
	Kia	12,995	17,291	0.75
	Mazda	4,482	5,505	0.81
	Subaru	532	643	0.83
	Škoda	17,245	20,238	0.85
	Toyota	18,480	20,460	0.90
	Fiat	13,368	14,459	0.92
	Peugeot	38,472	36,940	1.04
	VW	49,103	42,693	1.15
	Ford	24,790	20,783	1.19
	Opel	31,876	23,432	1.36
	Nissan	15,446	10,908	1.42
	Renault	44,112	30,510	1.45
	smart	673	463	1.45
	Citroën	32,303	19,158	1.69
	Honda	2,735	1,501	1.82
	Lancia	779	368	2.12
	Hyundai	19,852	8,235	2.41
	Jeep	1,085	326	3.33
	Dacia	16,466	4,375	3.76
	Chevrolet	2,489	158	15.75
	Ssangyong	619	3	206.33

Data source FEBIAC (Belgium) and Rai Vereniging (Nederland).

Phev picture: Autozeitung.

Dacia sells much better in Belgium