PARIS (Reuters) – Alpine, the Renault group’s sports brand, intends to maintain strong growth in sales of its only car, the premium A110 berlinetta, in 2023, while waiting for new models to arrive in the following years.
In 2022, Alpine’s sales soared 33% to 3,546 units, more than doubling in two years.
“We are going to increase production by about 20% normally (and) we will be (…) on good progress in 2023”, said Emmanuel Al Nawakil, world sales director, during a press conference call. .
In order to fully exploit the potential of the brand, world rally champion in 1973 within the framework of the “Renaulution” strategic plan, the managing director of the Renault group, Luca de Meo, has decided to bring together all the manufacturer’s sports activities and to expand the range.
The brand will offer a small electric city car derived from the new Renault 5 next year, followed by two other electric models: a compact SUV in 2025 and then a new A110.
The SUV will be a key element in Alpine’s expansion and in achieving a positive operating margin in 2026 for the brand, which is still in deficit today.
“We know that we are going to exceed the minimum ten thousand units (on the SUV) to obtain a satisfactory market share and a suitable profitability”, indicated Laurent Rossi, general manager of Alpine, during the teleconference. Press.
The arrival of this model will also lead to doubling or tripling the production volume of the Alpine site in Dieppe (Seine-Maritime), he added.
Such volumes will help the Renault group to recover sales still at half mast in 2022. And Alpine will not stop there since Luca de Meo has commissioned exploratory work for two large SUVs in the D and E segments, probably electric.
On all future models, Laurent Rossi said that the schedule was respected. “We are in transition times,” he said.
(Gilles Guillaume, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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