Citroen DS: Half of German ‘Sales’ are pre-reg

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Citroen’s new stand-alone DS brand is Citroen’s attempt to make ‘Premium’ sales, but it’s been revealed half of all DS sales in Germany are to Citroen’s DS dealers.

We’ve reported before on the dubious practice by car makers of ‘Pre-Reg’ cars to inflate sales figures, with estimates that up to 30 per cent of new car sales are actually to dealers, who then retail them as ‘used’ at a substantial discount.

Of course, many pre-reg sales are entirely legitimate and are used by dealers as demo cars, but the idea that 30 per cent of new cars are needed for demonstration by dealers is almost untenable.

But the concept that almost half of cars are needed for dealer purposes is surely fantasy, but that’s what Citroen has told Automotive News after it was revealed that almost 50 per cent of new car ‘sales’ in Germany for the new premium DS brand aren’t actually to customers.

According to DS CEO Yves Bonnefont:

There is no better way to understand and appreciate DS’s premiumness than driving one of our cars. This is the reason why we increased the fleet for test drives.

To be fair to M. Bonnefont, the pre-reg numbers in other European countries are lower – and Germany is a tough nut to crack for any premium brand that isn’t Germany – but nearly half of new cars needed for dealer demonstrations?

But selling DS as a premium car – however good some of them are – is a tough sell when there’s really nothing very new to offer, and it’s going to be 2018 before there’s anything properly new from DS, with just a facelift for the DS3 and DS4 in the offing before then to add to the recent DS5 facelift.

Still, you have to do what you have to do to make sales. Even if the sales aren’t real.