Seat registers best results since 2001

Carmaker Seat sold 468,400 vehicles in 2017, some 14.6% more than in the previous year. The increase of 60,000 vehicles is the best result since 2001, and one of the best results in the company’s history, the firm announced on Thursday.

What’s more, the rise in sales is the brand’s fifth consecutive year of growth, with sales going up some 45% between 2012 and 2017. In December alone, sales for Seat shot up to 32,900 vehicles, a 12.9% increase compared with the same month in 2016.

There were improved sales for all models, in particular the new compact SUV, Ateca, which sold 78,700 units. The León and Alhambra models registered the best sales in their history, with sales of Seat’s minivan up 1.7% to 31,200 units sold. The Eivissa model sold 152,300 units, up 0.6%.   

Seat’s vice president for sales, Wayne Griffiths, called the results "very positive" and stressed that not only are they the firm’s best results since 2001, but they placed the company among the carmakers in Europe that grew the most last year.

The company says the improved results were due to solid growth in the brand’s main markets, Germany first among them, with Seat selling more than 100,000 units there for the first time since 1991. In Spain, sales rose by 23% to 95,100 units, with the León and Eivissa models the best-selling models in Spain in 2017.

The company also registered historic highs in the UK, where sales rose 18% to 52,600 units, followed by Mexico (24,700; +0.7%) and France (24,200; +15.6%), while in Austria sales rose 19% to 17,500 units and in Switzerland the rise was 29% (10,300 vehicles).

In 2018, Seat will launch a new seven-seater SUV, and also plans to unveil a natural gas fueled version of its Arona model to add to its CNG range made up of the Mii, Eivissa and León models.