General Motors has decided to drop its Chevrolet brand in Europe by the end of 2015, GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky said recently.

The move is the latest effort by GM to turn around its European operations and to focus its resources on reviving the Opel brand.

Chevrolet will no longer have a mainstream presence in Europe due to a challenging business model and the difficult economic situation in Europe, GM said in a statement.

“We believe this is a win for all of our brands here in Europe and around the globe as GM will benefit from a stronger Opel/Vauxhall,” Girsky said. To pull Chevrolet out of Europe “will help us to accelerate progress in the region,” he said.

However, some of the brand’s iconic models, such as the Corvette, will remain on sale in Europe, and the upmarket Cadillac marque is working on expansion in Europe in the next three years, GM said. Chevrolet sales will continue in Russia, where the brand ranks No. 5 in sales behind Lada, Renault, Kia and Hyundai.

Chevrolet’s annual sales in Europe have remained low at about 200,000 since GM re-launched the brand in the region in 2005.

Chevrolet focused on selling small cars in Europe such as the Aveo subcompact and Spark minicar built by GM Daewoo in Korea.

Chevrolets were supposed to compete at the budget end of the market with the likes of Hyundai, Skoda and Renault’s Dacia.

But the brand failed to make much headway as its largely rebadged Korean-made Daewoo cars struggled against rivals, whose models are customized for European markets.

GM Daewoo exported 186,000 vehicles to Europe last year, accounting for over 20 percent of the unit’s total vehicle output.

“We will phase out exports to Europe by the end of 2015. We will discuss with the union how to enhance the operating efficiency of our plants,” Park Hae-ho, a spokesman at GM Korea, said.

Chevrolet’s deliveries in the EU markets dropped 17 percent to 152,260 vehicles to October 2013, giving the marque 1.2 percent of the market.

Opel and its sister UK division, Vauxhall, posted a three percent decline to 718,829 units over that period for a 6.7 percent market share.

Hurt by a brutal downturn in European demand, Chevrolet has responded by slashing prices and introducing more upmarket models — putting it on a collision course with Opel.

The Chevrolet distribution network in Europe totals about 1,900 dealers, and the company will “work with individual dealers” to determine their future.

More than half of the outlets also handle Opel models.

Girsky said that by shutting Chevrolet GM expects to record net special charges of $700 million to $1 billion primarily in the fourth quarter of 2013 and continuing in the first half of 2014.

The revamp “eliminates some competition from one of their own brands,” said Juergen Pieper, a Frankfurt-based analyst at Bankhaus Metzler.

“But we need to keep a sense of proportion: Chevrolet has never been very successful in Europe and there’s no guarantee Opel will automatically get its market share.”