Skoda stalls on ute, axes Citigo

An overwhelming focus on bringing a family of SUVs to market has prompted Volkswagen-owned Czech brand Skoda to put development of its first ute down the priority list and axe a second generation of its Citigo city-car.

Skoda Australia has been pushing hard for the pick-up, which would be based on the highly successful VW Amarok.

Pick-up sales are booming in Australia, with more than 60,000 4x2 and 4x4s sold so far in 2017.

The tiny Citigo, meanwhile, has never been available Down Under, although its VW-badged twin, the up!, did sell here unsuccessfully between 2012 and 2014.

The Citigo has only recently had a facelift and the expectation was it would be renewed in 2019-20.

But it has been sacrificed to meet Skoda’s SUV ambitions. The seven-seat Kodiaq is just launching in global markets and the smaller five-seat Karoq will replace the Yeti next year. A Kodiaq coupe and sub-compact Mazda CX-3 competitor also in the pipeline.

Skoda’s moves were confirmed to motoring.com.au by the company’s international sales general manager Peter Solc at the local launch of the Kodiaq overnight. We’ll publish our first local review of that car at midday today.

“We are looking on Australia definitely as a focus market and we evaluate the possibilities, the investments and the return on investments,” Solc explained when asked about a Skoda version of Amarok.

“We are looking at the global segments and how they are developing as well.

“So we have to evaluate what will bring Skoda globally the biggest return on investment. What we see as the biggest opportunity is to focus further on the SUV.”

An issue for Skoda is that it is not strong in markets such as South America where pick-ups are big sellers and it is not present at all in the USA. In its European stronghold, vans are more popular.

Australia and South Africa are two markets which have been calling for a Skoda pick-up.

“There are certain markets definitely for that,” Solc said. “But the focus now is on the SUVs.”

Solc used the axing of the Citigo as an example of how fundamentally Skoda is willing to adjust its model range to accommodate the SUV boom. He suggested the SUV line-up could grow beyond four in the future.

“There is no [SUV] limit if the customer is there,” he said.

“If we see some segments are going down then we focus on different models,” he added.

“You will see a first result of it soon. One car that is not offered in Australia [Citigo] but is offered in the Skoda range in Europe will be discontinued because simply we see that the segments are going down.

“So why as an OEM, as a manufacturer, would you invest into something that you could invest to a different model to bring into life that would attract more customers?”

Image: Digitally manipulated