The Mercedes CLA, GLA and EQA have grabbed market share of the A-Class
- The Mercedes A-Class has had two very distinct eras, the first running from 1997 to 2012 when the A-Class was a small B-segment MPV that had mixed success, and the second running from 2012 to 2025 when the A-Class had become a C-segment sedan competing with the Audi A3 or BMW 1 Series.
- This new generation of the A-Class was very successful, going from 100,000 units in 2012 to 250,000 in 2019, the peak of production of this model in Europe (it was then the second generation of the A-Class sedan launched in 2018). Since 2019, that is, since the launch of the second generation of the CLA (three-box version of the A-Class), the A-Class has continued to decline, going from 250,000 units in 2019 to 216,000 in 2020, 174,000 in 2021, 146,000 in 2022 and 126,000 in 2023. During this same period, the CLA saw its production volume increase to 91,000 units in 2023.
- To complicate the situation of the A-Class, the launch in 2019 of the second generation of the GLA SUV (derived from the A-Class) and its battery electric version EQA in 2021 will bite into the sales of the A-Class. To summarize, we can say that the A-Class has been competed from 2019 both by its CLA three-box version, by its GLA SUV version and by its battery electric EQA SUV version.
- It is interesting to note that the cumulative production in Europe of these four models has only decreased since 2019, going from 450,000 units in 2019 to 372,000 in 2020 and 370,000 in 2023. Mercedes plans to end the A-Class in 2025.