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. 

Nissan Global Deliveries : 2024-26 (Q1)

Deliveries: They were -1% in 2024, -4% in 2005 and for Q1 2026 -5%. That means two years of quarterly decreases but none of them large. 

Production: They have been -9% in 2024, -6% in 2025 and -6% in Q1 2026. As deliveries are consistently higher than production, I assume Renault and Mitsubishi produce some of their vehicles.

Data & Photo source: Nissan (Leaf, Juke EV & Qashqai).

Regional Production: The U.S. and Japan are the largest producers for Nissan in Q1, 2026. mexico has dropped to 18% of the total and China 17%. The U.K. is up to 12%. 78% of the total manufacturing is made outside of Japan. 

Regional Sales: They are down 5% with 84% outside of Japan. North America accounted for 41% of the total deliveries. China is down to 16% and while Europe is up to 12%, that surely has potential for improvement. 

Mazda Global Deliveries : 2025-26 (Q1)

Deliveries were down 10% for the first quarter, the fourth consecutive quarter of decrease. With the proliferation of Chinese brands aggressively seeking customers, it's hardly surprising. Mazda do not offer a meaningful sales breakdown by model.

Data & photo source: Mazda.

As for regions, all bar Europe were down. China is now barely of any relevance, such has been the decline there. With 'Others' now making up over half the volume, adding some more regional breakdowns might be a logical step forward.

Xiaomi Global Deliveries : 2025-26 (Q1)

Xiaomi is laid back when it comes to revealing sales data. It seems 80,000 units is an accepted volume for Q1 and with no official word, that is it. It's just 5% up on the corresponding period of 2025. 

The target for 2026 is an ambitious 550,000 units, or in excess of 52,000 per month from here to December. There are refreshed models arriving soon so one could expect an uplift then. 

The market is conjested and competition fierce so so few car manufacturers are expecting an increase in 2026.

Deliveries increase through the year for Chinese manufacturers, so while its target looks overly optimistic, it's achievable. 

Data source: Xiaomi.

Indonesia Vehicle Sales : 2026 (Jan-Mar)

Registrations in Indonesia were down 13% in March and up half a percent YTD. Toyota and subsidiary Daihatsu are not far off commanding half of the market. Chinese brands have arrived in a feeding frenzy but seem to be unable to have much impact on the better selling Japanese brands. At present, they seem to be canabalising sales off each other. 

It never ceases to amaze me how in Asia, car pictures on company websites are so bland or downright cheesy. Do people actually like them? We have here the Toyota Innova (above) and Daihatsu Sirion (below). 

Data source: Gaikindo. 

Renault/Dacia Global Model Sales: 2025

Renault used to separate Renault and Dacia sales. Then they moved to having all the models combined, regardless of whether they were sold as Renault or a Dacia. Because some Dacia models are sold under the Renault brand, it became impossible to separate them.

Below are the combined sales by model. The Sandero passed the Clio in 2021 and was the largest selling model four years in a row until 2025 when the Clio took back the #1 ranking. Light commercial vehicles are also included. 

Data source: Renault Group. Photos: Renault 5 & Dacia models. 

Chile Passenger Car Sales : 2026 (Jan-Mar)

Registrations were up 19% in March and 9% YTD. Suzuki's 10.8% market share is the best since 2008. It was also enough to secure the top spot. Hyundai and Kia are about tied, with only three sales separating them. Toyota is next, just 14 behind Kia, so it is really tight among those three. 

Data source: ANAC. Photos Suzuki Fronx & Kia Soluto. 

Portugal Passenger Car Sales : 2026 (Jan-Mar)

Registrations were up 9% both for the month and YTD. Peugeot crept back over the 10% share mark with a 12% market share gain over a complete 2025. It's unusual to have no manufacturer exceeding 10%.

A plethora of Chinese brands have arrived and they are enjoying the largest increases. The question is can that be sustained? In 2026, there seems to be plenty of room for them to expand. 

Data source: ACAP. Photos: Citroën C3 Aircross & MG S9.

Nissan Deliveries/Production 2018-2023

Datsun once rivaled Toyota in size and reputation. It became Nissan from 1981 to 1984. The company lost its way, so in 1999 Renault intervened and took control of Nissan. Carlos Ghosn became the CEO of Nissan and quickly turned it into a profitable company again. Then in 2005, took over leadership of Renault-Nissan as a whole. 

Nissan executives were unhappy with Carlos Ghosn and had him arrested in late 2018. They then took a very different direction, cutting back on volume yet Nissan's financial situation deteriorated drastically. Recent discussions with collaboration with Honda came to nothing. 

Looking at the 2018 to 2020 deliveries and production chart shows the move away from volume for the latter two years. Pulling back on less profitable sales should improve the bottom line but in this case it got worse. 

I also wonder how the deliveries were consistently higher than production over consecutive years. I've tried to find out why and have yet to clarify that. For example btween 2017 and 2021, the disparity was over 1.3 million favouring deliveries.

Things seemed to settle down in 2021, then a slump in 2022 and a slight increase in 2023. Still, a drop of nearly 2.3 million deliveries from 2018 to 2023 was seismic. Yet at the end of it all, losses had mounted. Cutting back on lower margin sales should have helped. Maybe Carlos was on to something. 

Data source: Nissan. Pics: NetCarShow (2019 Maxima & 2022 Qashqai).

Honda Vehicle Production 2020 - 2025 (Quarterly)

The data here is production, not deliveries. I would have preferred the latter but Honda only provides this level of detail for the former. 

Honda set out to be a top motorcycle manufacturer and  became the world's largest in 1959, having started in 1949. Having consolidated that position, it turned to passenger cars in 1963.

I believed that Honda also wanted to become the world's largest car manufacturer too. The company admitted some years back that would never be the case. 

I tried to find confirmation of that but can't, so either my memory is letting me down or AI isn't all it's cracked up to be. If anyone can confirm either way, please leave a comment. 

Anyway, in 2020 4.4 million vehicles were made, 37% of which were made in China. China's contribution to the total has nearly halved in that time to just 20% and that trend will presumably continue. 

From 2020 to 2025, production numbers have fallen by 1 million units, nearly all of that in China (-963,000). With the exception of 2023, it's been a case of reducing volume since. 

Honda forecast for a ¥550b profit for the year to ‌March 2026 but now anticipates losing up to ¥570 billion. It will be Honda's first annual loss since it listing on the stock market in 1957.  

In early 2025, talks exploring a merger / takeover between Honda and Nissan were abandoned. Honda wanted Nissan to be a subsidiary rather than a partner. I wonder if a partnership between them would be mutually beneficial? It now seems highly unlikely in any event. 

Data & photo source: Honda (Accord & Vezel/HR-V).

Mazda Deliveries 2019 - 2024 (Quarterly)

Mazda isn't a big player in Japan. It relies on export markets to be viable. In 2025, only 11.9% of deliveries were in Japan. 

In 2019, deliveries were at 1.498 million. They dropped 17% in the year 2000 and thereafter were around the 1.2 million mark. 

From 2019 to 2024, all regions have regressed except North America. Over this time, NA volume has increased by 52%! A third of all Mazda cars sold globally were in North America in 2024. 

Over this time period, deliveries to China has fallen 64% from 15.2% to just 6.4% of total Mazda sales. The contrast in changing fortunes compared to North America is dramatic.

Volume being supplied to Europe has fallen 40% in this time. All the gains in NA have been negated by all other regions of the world. 

So it can't be overemphasised how important North America has become to Mazda. It's not an ideal reliance as recent tariff threats show. I think the tariff rate at the time of writing is 15%,

Mazda has a working relationship with Toyota that is beneficial. They are called 'cooperative associations' or Kyoryoku Kai. There should be more of them in the car industry. 

Data & photo source: Mazda (CX-90 & MX-5). 

Romania Passenger Car Sales : 2026 (Jan-Mar)

Although March was up 5% YOY, for the three months it's down 19%. Share for 2025 is based on the complete year. Dacia recorded a huge 37% fall in market share, and when added to a market down 19%, that is quite a tumble in volume. It still does have 18% of the total sales. 

Škoda and Volkswagen have done well so far as have Chery, BYD and Nissan but Renault and Hyundai have suffered. It really is all rather topsy turvy. 

Data source: DGPCI. Photos Dacia (Sandero Stepway & Bigster).