► Big thanks to Bigster
► Sandero is Europe’s best-selling car… again
► New electrified A and C-segment vehicles in 2026

Dacia has climbed to become Europe’s second-biggest brand, securing 7.9  per cent of the continent’s private car sales in 2025. It was also a landmark year for the Romanian marque, which passed 10 million vehicles sold since its rebirth under Renault Group in 2004, with 697,408 cars registered globally last year.

‘For the brand, 2025 was a year of successes,’ said Dacia’s new VP of Marketing, Sales and Operations, Frank Marotte, speaking at the firm’s annual sales update. ‘We grew by three per cent versus 2024 in the worldwide market.’

In the broader passenger car and light commercial vehicle market, the brand also posted a best-ever four per cent share, retaining its 10th-place ranking overall.

The breakdown

Scratch beneath the headline figures though, and the picture is a little more nuanced. Dacia’s mega-seller, the Sandero, sold 289,295 units worldwide and retained the title of Europe’s best-selling car for the second year running – that includes retail, fleet, rental and leasing – but recorded a 6.5 per cent dip in sales compared to 2024.

Still, one in every 55 cars sold in Europe was a Sandero, and it’s not surprising since it’s also been the continent’s best-selling vehicle among private buyers since 2017.

Meanwhile, the Duster was narrowly beaten by the VW T-Roc but held on as the second best-selling SUV on the continent, despite another drop at 9.8 per cent. Worldwide, Dacia flogged 193,974 Dusters in 2025. Yet the biggest battering in sales came from the Jogger, taking a 23.6 per cent nosedive versus the previous year.

One of the redeeming vehicles in the lineup was the Spring battery electric city car. Despite a one-star Euro NCAP rating, it became the number one A-segment EV, shifting 35,034 units.

But the real success story came from its newest and most expensive model, the recently released Dacia Bigster. ‘Without Bigster sales, we would not have grown this year,’ admitted Marotte. With registrations starting at the end of June, the C-segment SUV topped its class in Europe, selling more than 67,000 units in the second half of 2025.

So why all the losses?

Marotte puts it down to difficult market conditions in three of Dacia’s major markets – Italy, France and Romania – which account for 40 per cent of all Dacia sales. When asked, he dismissed concerns that the Bigster is cannibalising Duster and Jogger demand, though has yet to confirm this with hard data.

What’s more, there’s work to do in northern Europe, ‘we still have some improvements to achieve. Our ranking in the UK and northern Europe is where we need some growth.’

In the UK at least, Dacia sits in a lowly 16th place, citing ZEV mandate as a key challenge, “We need to be compliant to the ZEV mandate because the penalties are too high and we have no intention at Renault group to pay penalties.” Marotte said.

More electrified vehicles incoming

So to get round that, Dacia is planning a broader electric line-up. An electrified C-segment model to complement the Bigster and Jogger will be revealed in Spring 2026, while a new A-segment EV based on the Renault Twingo is due by the end of the year.

Originally it was expected to replace the Spring, but instead the new model will sit alongside it. Pricing is yet to be confirmed, but singing to the Dacia hymn sheet, it is expected to remain affordable, likely around £2,000 above the Spring.

Looking further ahead, the Dacia Hipster is the Dacia’s thinking on ultra-compact urban mobility.  A concept somewhere between a quadricycle and conventional passenger vehicle, but designed to seat four people in the smallest possible footprint.

Since its hybrid sales rose by 122 per cent in 2025, Dacia hopes to keep up the momentum by releasing a hybrid version of the Sandero later this year. Let’s see if it can score a hat trick in 2026.