This week the third generation Seat Leon has achieved the million units sold mark since its launch in 2012.
Designed, developed and produced in Spain’s Martorell municipality, the current-generation Leon has been built on VW’s modular MQB platform since the beginning. This platform involved an investment of €800m at the time, and brought an unprecedented technological leap.
The success of the Leon transformed Seat’s recent history from a commercial and financial standpoint, and drove a qualitative leap in the perception of the brand image.
Likewise, the Leon also enabled increasing the profitability margin per Seat model, which contributed to turning the negative figures of 2012 (-€149m) to the best ever in the history of the company (profit after tax of €294m 2018).
The Leon has been a key model for boosting sales in countries such as Germany and the UK, where deliveries have risen close to 70% and 60%, respectively, since 2012. The Leon is still Seat’s top-selling model, and one out of every four cars sold by the brand in the first six months of 2019 was a Leon.
Of probably greatest importance to DVN readers, the Leon was the first high-volume popular-priced car with LED low and high beam headlamps as standard equipment.
