The fact that car brands are fully committed to SUVs and crossovers is easy to understand when we look at the market share among the new cars. In five years, the SUV has become immensely popular in the Netherlands.
Twenty years ago, an SUV was still a car for rough terrain, for the construction site or for the PC Hooftstraat. Even ten years ago it was still a relatively marginally popular body shape. However, things have gone very fast in the past five years. This is evident from figures from RDC and Rai Vereniging, inspected by ING. In 5 years time, the share of SUVs (disconnected from the regular segments) among new cars sold has grown from 11 percent to no less than 31 percent. In 2014, about 1 in 10 new cars sold was an SUV, now that is almost 1 in 3.
While all other non-SUVs are losing market share, there are two categories that are mainly losing ground. Not surprisingly, the regular E-segment has shrunk sharply, but the non-SUVs in the C and D segment are also losing share. Precise figures are not mentioned, but five years ago compact cars and regular mid-sized cars together accounted for roughly 80 percent of total sales, now it is about 60 percent. The higher segments now only account for about 5 percent of sales.