Citroën has confirmed that it is to radically alter the way it markets its cars in Ireland. Last year the French manufacturer saw its share fall by 23 per cent to end at just 1.7 per cent of the Irish new car market.
In Europe Citroën has a market share of almost 6.5 per cent, but in Ireland sales have been slipping until it is now the third worst performing European country for sales of Citroën cars.
The Irish importer, Gowan Distributors, blames a marketing strategy based around offering new car buyers major showroom discounts - a strategy that was forced upon it by the French carmaker after similar discounting policies worked in other European countries.
However, after two years of slashing the showroom prices of its new models, which in many cases happened very soon after they first appeared on the market, Gowan Distributors has said that from the start of this year it will no longer offer such discounts. This will make Ireland the only country in Europe where Citroën's policy of heavy discounts will be discontinued.
Instead, Irish car buyers will see Citroën place a greater emphasis on promoting its new cars' higher than average equipment levels, their impressive safety record as well as supporting the residual prices of its used cars - something that it now admits has been badly damaged by its recent new car price discounting policy.
It says residual values will be supported by used car marketing guarantees, which means Citroën owners looking to trade-in can now expect a better deal from their dealer.
Gowan hopes that its efforts to promote its products rather than discount them will have a positive effect on its market share, which it says will rise to 2 per cent by the end of this year.
Over the past few years, the number of Citroën dealers has fallen to just 30 statewide. In Dublin, the carmaker has lost three major dealers including its best performer and has not yet replaced them. It no longer has a dealer in Cork city or in Donegal and, while it is optimistic that it will eventually get the number of dealers up to 40, with the large investment needed by dealers to set up a new franchise, it is a case of the chicken and egg with dealers waiting to see if such an investment will pay off and Citroën hoping to attract them to increase its market share.