The French brand will stop taking orders for new models from November 1, 2024.
16 Aug 2024 | 4186 Views | By Akbar Merchant, Autocar India
Citroen will soon stop selling cars in Australia. However, the French brand’s local distributor Inchcape will continue selling the rest of the Stellantis line-up, including Peugeot, for the Australian market. Inchcape Australia has announced that it will close orders on new Citroen models by November 1, 2024, due to dismal sales.
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Citroen will soon stop selling cars in Australia. However, the French brand’s local distributor Inchcape will continue selling the rest of the Stellantis line-up, including Peugeot, for the Australian market. Inchcape Australia has announced that it will close orders on new Citroen models by November 1, 2024, due to dismal sales.
This development comes as parent brand Stellantis has been struggling with an overall sales slump in most global markets. Citroen’s farewell to Australia Citroen, will transition to a service-only operation in the Australian market, once it is done delivering pending orders. The brand has 35 service centres in the country.
Citroen’s Australia line-up currently includes the C4 high riding hatchback, the C5 Aircross and the C5 X. The brand has not introduced the new-gen C3 line-up that includes the C3, the C3 Aircross, and the eC3. According to online reports, Citroen has delivered just 87 cars this year, which is fewer than luxury marques such as Ferrari (138), Aston Martin (96), Bentley (123), and Lamborghini (161).
Citroen has a diverse global portfolio with many region-specific models spread across various price points. The brand has a Europe-specific line-up which includes a range of models for its passenger and commercial vehicle categories.
As far as emerging markets go, the company is heavily leveraging the Stellantis CMP platform that is used to underpin a long list of compact cars and SUVs, not just for Citroen but also some Peugeot models. The same platform is now also being introduced for newer Fiat models like the Panda and a few that are in the pipeline.
Citroen' ambitious sales target for India
While France remains Citroen’s biggest market, where it sells more than 200,000 units a year, Citroen wants India to become its second largest market in the next five years, as the brand has heavily localised the CMP platform for multiple models that are sold not just in India but also exported to a few international markets.
Citroen India has set a sales target of 1 lakh cars annually, in the next five years. At the moment, sales numbers for Citroen in India continue to be dependent on exports. Citroen currently sells the C3, the eC3, the C3 Aircross, and will soon launch the entire line-up of the Basalt in India. The company's performance in India has been lacukluster, with the brand selling around 17,000 combined units in FY22, FY23 and FY24, making it around 5,100 unit sales every financial year. Of this, the band has so far exported around 5,000 made-in-India units to overseas markets like Indonesia and South Africa among others.
Of late, Citroen is seeing growing demand for its made-in-India products, particularly the C3 Aircross SUV. In fact, its cumulative exports of 1,388 units in the first three months of FY2025 are ahead of its domestic India market sales of 1,258 units by 130 units.
Citroen’s Q1 FY2025 export numbers are a strong 97% year-on-year increase (April-June 2023: 703 units), albeit on a low year-ago base. This total comprises 1,019 C3 Aircross SUVs, 330 units of the C3 and eC3 hatchbacks, and 39 units of the yet-to-be-introduced Basalt.
Citroen’s fourth product in India, the C3 Aircross has fared far better on the export front than in the domestic market. The C3 Aircross accounts for 73% of Citroen India’s total 1,388 passenger vehicles shipped overseas in the first three months of FY2025.