Skoda Superb showing strong sales, giving brand’s premium slant traction

The Skoda Superb flagship hatch and wagon made up a remarkable 22 per cent of the company’s Australian sales volume in October.

The Czech brand’s local arm sold 104 Superbs last month. More interestingly, most of these were loaded up with options, such as the Tech Pack and Comfort Pack, taking the average price well past $50,000, and some pushed beyond $60,000.

Couple this with the fact that 259 Octavias found homes — 40 per cent of which were the circa $45,000 RS models — and Skoda’s claim to being a ‘semi-premium alternative’ has some legs. The overall volumes are small, but the skew to high-end versions is admirable.

Considering the Mazda CX-9-rivalling Kodiaq seven-seater launches around the middle of 2017, with a likely retail pricing point of between $40,000 and $60,000 dependent on spec, and this idea will only gain more traction.

These two models’ figures dominated Skoda’s total last month, which was an October record-setting 472 units total. The remainder were the Fabia, Rapid and Yeti, all of which retail for far less that the flagship Superb and Octavia models.

“Buyers see Skoda as a value European alternative to the prestige players,” managing director Michael Irmer claims. “This tendency to fully option already exceptionally well-equipped cars is seen throughout the Skoda range”.

It’s hard to doubt that claim at present, though whether the brand can reconcile this with its aim to grow volume remains to be seen. Its positioning here is quite different to Europe, where it sells more on price.

Skoda has in recent weeks released the new range-topper of its Yeti SUV range, the 110TSI, which replaces the diesel version (that was caught up in Dieselgate). Next week it launches the limited edition Octavia RS230 – the most potent iteration of the RS line-up.

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